Area’s patients miss 36,000 GP appointments in one year
UP TO £1.4M WASTED ON NO-SHOWS
MISSED GP appointments across North East Lincolnshire could have wasted more than £1 million in the last year.
Across the area, 35,986 GP slots were logged as “did not attend” in the year to April, according to NHS figures.
That was 3.2 per cent of appointments that were either recorded as having been attended or missed.
A further 45,958 were marked as “unknown” because no record was made as to whether a patient turned up or not.
A recent study by the Personal Social Services Research Unit found that, in 2020, the average nine-minute GP consultation cost around £39.
Assuming that were the case for all appointments in North East Lincs, all no-shows in the year to April would amount to £1.4 million wasted.
Across England, 13.9 million appointments were missed in the 12 months to April, which was 4.5 per cent of those for which attendance was recorded.
Dr Sarah Jarvis, a GP and clinical director of health website Patient, told the Express that missed appointments were “incredibly frustrating” when family doctors were experiencing intense workloads.
She said she supported the idea of fining patients a small amount – such as £5 or £10 – for wasting doctors’ time.
Professor Karol Sikora, former director of the World Health Organisation cancer programme, also told the newspaper that fines could be an option for those who miss slots without fair notice.
Dr Sikora, who also writes a Daily Express column, added: “Millions of people are desperate to see a doctor. By taking up valuable resources you are denying somebody else the opportunity which could potentially save their life.”
Professor Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said there were many reasons why a patient might miss an appointment.
He said: “For some patients, missing appointments can be a sign that something more serious is going on, and that follow-up action is needed.
“For some, it will have been a case of human error or other aspects of life taking priority. For others, particularly if the appointment was longstanding, it may have no longer been needed.
“And it might not seem like a big deal to miss a 10-minute appointment, but the unintended consequences are that other patients are being kept waiting.”
Prof Marshal issued a plea for patients to contact their surgery as soon as possible to let them know they won’t be attending an appointment if they are able to.
But he added that the bigger issue affecting access to care was workload and workforce pressures, and urged ministers to make good on their pledge for 6,000 more GPs and 26,000 more members of practice teams by 2024.
A Department of Health and Care spokesperson said: “We have over 1,400 more doctors working in general practice, and have recruited over 18,000 more primary care professionals to boost capacity and ensure more appointments are available for patients.
“We have invested £520 million to expand GP capacity during the pandemic, on top of £1.5 billion until 2024, and we are making 4,000 training places available for GPs each year, helping to create an extra 50 million appointments a year.”
By taking up valuable resources you are denying somebody else the opportunity which could potentially save their life.
Professor Karol Sikora