Just listening to news about this and have only ever missed 3 appointments in my life - none of them my fault. One didn’t even know I had an appointment no phone call, no letter no nothing - one was cancelled by the consultant but had not got through to appointments and one I had cancelled myself but they had not cancelled at the hospital. I have also had appointments made for me and when I got there the consultant has said - what are you doing here I don’t t want to see you until I see you at - wherever and whatever?
I know this is all to do with the leadership
campaigns just want some one to say itis all about Health, Health, Health not Education, Edication, Education as without health we can’t make use of education. We really need to get health at the top of the agenda now especially with the pandemic and with monkey pox. My nephew is in Canada at the moment giving a presentation at a health conference and has taken this opportunity to get vaccinated against monkey pox as it seems most are to be vaccinated there - not sure of the details.
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Desanthony
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Don’t know why there is a space in the middle of that when I went in to edit it out it cam up with no space and then when I tried it still cam up with space- sorry.
Our surgery sometimes display on a board near reception the figure for monthly appts missed. I was surprised to see over 200 when I saw this. Apart from bad manners not cancelling, it deprived many desperate patients from getting an appt. Personally I think the charge should be higher. A phone call is all it takes or a press of a button online.
I suspect,no evidence, that there are people who consistently miss doctor and hospital apointments.Mt doctors practice told me they have quite a few people who do not turn up.I put it down to those doing this with no excuse generally not having a responsible attitude in society.
I imagine it will cost them more to chase up these people and get payment than the actual cost of the missed appointment - depending on what it is for. When I have an appointment for a scan or something I always tell the hospital I am available at short notice for a cancellation or no show.
My feeling £10 will be no deterrent for most people as it hard to get 2 coffees and a bun for that price and as already said, won't cover the price of admin for collection of fines. Then there will have to be an appeals system for all the reasons already mentioned eek!!
There are blips in the hospital communication system here in Eastbourne. People do not always receive an appointment. If you are lucky, you are reminded of your appointment a week or a day before it is due which does at least give you chance to change other plans and take up the appointment.
My husband recently had a text the day before an appointment telling him not to forget to attend! A phone call to the department the next morning revealed it was for an excision procedure and he was told he mustn't drive himself home afterwards! It turned out there was a letter on the computer (which was read out to him) but it was marked as 'Not Sent'. Where's the sense in that?
We took this up with the department involved and they admitted that there was a glitch in the system which they promised would be sorted out.
The same department slated my friend's father when he arrived for his appointment. They told him in no uncertain terms that he had missed two previous appointments and that if he missed any more without letting them know, he would be discharged. He had never received any appointments and does not use a mobile phone.
Another friend's husband had a situation with an appointment at another department where he was en route in the car to do his volunteering job and he received a phone call demanding to know where he was as he needed his tests so that he could start his radiotherapy. Again, he had not been notified that he had an appointment.
So I am furious at the thought that missed appointments may be charged for when the hospital doesn't send them out in the first place!
Hi, I have exactly the same problem with Worthing hospital, not being notified that I had an appointment then when I was given an appointment I turned up and they said they had no record of it! How many times must this be happening I wonder!
I think that our appointment system is outsourced and when the letters are sent, the people doing it have no medical training (or so I was told by a radiographer, a nurse and a consultant) so occasionally you might have a procedure accidentally added because they haven't understood the consultant's request properly.
Neither do they know what the waiting lists are so if you phone because you haven't heard from the department within 3 weeks following referral (as told to do in the letter) no one has any idea why you've been told to phone!
Communication is dreadful. Thank goodness most of the medical staff are excellent! Xx Moy
If you cancel the appointment that's fine. If you can't be bothered and just don't turn up that's pretty poor and a public flogging would be more appropriate than the price of a couple of pints of beer
Hey Obi… I don’t think a public flogging really is appropriate. Have you seen recently, the hourly rate for a flogger. Remember these are destitute times we’re living in.
After having run clinics in the NHS system for more than 20 years, i know that for hospital outpatient clinics the DNA (did not attend) rate runs at about a whopping 25%. It runs at about 15% for clinics held out in the community at local GP surgeries. However, I also know that during my 11 month journey to get my 3 ablations done, I received a whopping 8 erroneous letters from the Cardiology department. So that is entirely down to a rubbish administration service. That is where the shake up needs to be.
Hi maggimunro--- I had a cardioversion done on Feb18th this year. The doc performing the procedure dictated one letter to my GP and one to my consultant both on the very same day. Those letters were typed on 11the March and copies didn't get to me or my GP till 22nd June--FOUR months after being dictated, by which time I had missed a blood test which I was supposed to have in March. I complained when the same thing happened last year , when it took 2 months for a letter to arrive. I was told there was a backlog of 1000 outpatients letters from cardiology waiting to be sent and they were going to outsource them to a private company to speed things up. The whole admin structure in our hospitals has completely broken down. With regard to missed appointments. If you miss two appointments at my NHS dentist, without a cast iron excuse, you are removed from their patient list. They also have a notice up about how many missed appointments have occurred in that month. I used to be on the Patient Participation Group at my surgery and we were discussing missed appointments. I suggested that we could put up a similar notice like the one in the dentist. The practice manager wasn't in favour and said that the doctors didn't mind having a missed appointment as it gave them time to 'catch up!'
Cummon Dessy… When you think about it; a few missed appointments per day will give the doc a little more breathing space and no harm done to the system. Just the numpty of a patient that suffers.
My telephone appointment with my EP for post ablation never happened as my wife and me sat by the phone all day to no avail.A letter last week stated that I was not available for the appointment so I have been discharged back to my GP.
Exactly the same thing happened to my friend. Tel appointment at 4.00 pm with Consultant. He sat by the phone from 3.30pm till 6pm when he had to go out. The phone call came but at 6.30pm. He had cancelled an appointment a few months earlier, which the hospital put down as a no show, plus the 'missed' phone call, he was told he would be discharged back to his GP if he failed to keep the next appointment. It's not the doctors at fault, but the rubbish admin.
Last week my partner went along for blood test at our GP surgery, he had his blood test and returned home. The surgery sent him a text stating he had failed to turn up for this appt whilst he was having it done. It's also on his medical record as a no show. The results are now next to the no show entry !!!
I blame the Drs staff. And computers. So much is done via computers that nobody knows where the information goes. I've had appts set up the last couple months that I had no idea what they were for. I would call the Drs office trying to find out what's going on and never get a call back. I had to call the places where these appts were to find out what they were for. Then when the Drs office finally calls back they always have some excuse. And most Drs offices here have 5 or 6 people staffing them. What are they doing? That many office staff ought to get something right. You are charged for missed appts.
Unfortunately, in my opinion only, there is much more wrong with the NHS than just money can fix. The manual and IT based systems for most things including appointments, seem to be archaic and not fit for purpose. The people managing deployment of existing staff seem to have got it very wrong. A and E and wards are badly staffed and the poor doctors and nurses are run off their feet and yet when I go for routine cardiology appointments there are qualified nurses standing around doing absolutely nothing. When I went for a recent appointment it apparently took four different qualified nurses to : Take my temperature/ weigh me/ do my blood pressure and do an ecg . I get that the ecg may be a bit of a specialised skill but temperature, weight and blood pressure…. No!
Since Covid, there have only ever been 3 other patients in the waiting room so that is 1 nurse per patient.
Please feel free to enlighten me someone. This is purely based on my own experience. X
I forgot during that rant to make my main point that until the systems for appointments are fit for purpose, it is unfair to make patients pay for those that are missed.
If you cant attend a doctors appointment all you need to do is call and cancel. So I can’t see anyone getting a charge if they do this, I think it will only apply to those who don’t turn up without giving proper notice, and there’s alot who actually do this at our surgery anyway.!!!
I would charge more than £10 to be honest.
And I would also introduce a 3 counts and your out policy.
Why should you be allowed to book and see a doctor and have him/her sat there waiting to see you and not turn up without a good reason.?
As well as the problems with admin errors people have described here, plenty of doctors think this is a bad idea.
One of their reasons:- "The problem is it will cost more to recoup through the bureaucracy!" Dr Richard Vautrey, a GP in Leeds told Rachel Johnson on LBC that Rishi Sunak's proposal to charge £10 for missed GP appointments would cost more to administer than it would raise. (LBC on Twitter)
I missed a cardio appt. late last year, totally, 100% my fault (I forgot to turn over the calendar page, so missed the scheduled appt. on the 1st of the new month). I felt terrible, apologized profusely to the office, they were very nice, told me not to worry, I'm a "good" one........then relayed several horror stories of patients that routinely MISS 50% OF THEIR APPTS. (!!!), and have flagged several files with a DO NOT RESCHEDULE flag! I felt better, but now dutifully flip the calendar page at the end of each month!
I am all for charging for missed appointments. I have to wait a month and a few days for all my GP appointments. When I questioned this I was told in the last month, ninety people had not turned up for their appointments. So at the start of the month, the GP was fully booked but because of these no shows, he was left sitting there. Ninety of us could have been seen a lot earlier.
Yes if it's the patients fault there should be a charge. But then there's always the-something that happens no one can control. Patient could have been in an accident before the appt or on the way to the appt. and no way to get in touch with the Dr. Or something else. Just saying. 🤷
Same thing could happen with the Dr too. Should be no charge for those happenstances.
It’s a pathetic amount they are threatening. £10.00 I think. Not worth the effort of them proving you are telling the truth for your missed app. It will help the NHS, so I say pay it what ever the reason.
I don't live in the Uk, so I do not have this problem, but I have read that it is often hard to get through on the phone to the surgery. If this is so, could that be a reason for missed appointments, the patient just gets fed up with holding on so that he can advise that he is unable to attend? Just a thought.
I live in the USA. Sometimes it's hard to get a phone call into the office. But most offices here in the USA seem to have a third party agency that does nothing but schedule for appts. Then the agency relays the info to the Drs office. But even that doesn't always work. I think too much gets lost in the computer systems.
Yes. I was on my way to an appointment once and was in a traffic jam in town - I kept trying f to ring to say I would be late but couldn’t get through. Cost a fortune on the mobile because you have to hold on while they go through a long spiel and then you eventually hear the engaged signal so put the phone down and try again! I was literally within a 5 minite walk to the surgery stuck in a jam but couldn’t park car to walk there. 🤣
Yes. I was on my way to an appointment once and was in a traffic jam in town - I kept trying f to ring to say I would be late but couldn’t get through. Cost a fortune on the mobile because you have to hold on while they go through a long spiel and then you eventually hear the engaged signal so put the phone down and try again! I was literally within a 5 minite walk to the surgery stuck in a jam but couldn’t park car to walk there. 🤣
Yes. I was on my way to an appointment once and was in a traffic jam in town - I kept trying f to ring to say I would be late but couldn’t get through. Cost a fortune on the mobile because you have to hold on while they go through a long spiel and then you eventually hear the engaged signal so put the phone down and try again! I was literally within a 5 minite walk to the surgery stuck in a jam but couldn’t park car to walk there. 🤣
I work and live in an area that sometimes has heavy traffic. So on a good day I'm 20 mins away from GP. If the traffic is very heavy then it can take more than one half hrs to get there! I try to allow for this when the receptionist gives me an appointment. However if I'm stuck in heavy traffic then to pull into a lay by and wait whilst I'm in a queue of people a also trying to get through to the GP surgery, may mean that I don't turn up! I am occasionally past my appointment time by the time the phone is picked up. So no I don't think that's fair! It's never fair to charge under these circumstances.
I too leave extra early for my appts. In case there's work being done on the roads, which is never ending here in Florida. And always car accidents somewhere. Better early than late.
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