An NHS cost we can all take steps to avoid

The financial difficulties facing health boards figure all too often in the news, but the £4 million bill for missed appointments in local health services last year seems a particularly wasteful expense.

NHS chiefs in Fife have put the cost of each no-show at £120. This is a health board which was warned it was facing financial crisis in October last year after Audit Scotland raised the alarm over its reliance on one-off cuts to balance the books.

In neighbouring Tayside, meanwhile, the board has been told it will have to make savings of £200m over the next five years.

Against that kind of sum, £120 may seem like a drop in the ocean but multiply it by the 30,000 appointments missed across Mid Fife and Central Scotland last year and it soon adds up to a hefty dent in the budgets of health authorities which are already having to operate in ever more straitened circumstances.

And it is a waste which rests squarely upon those of us who depend on the NHS.

Few British institutions are more cherished than the health service, yet a changing population and rising costs are placing it under greater pressure than ever before.

As bosses grapple with how best to deliver frontline care into the future, it is incumbent upon all of us to play our part and ensure the dedicated professionals who deliver our care are given every support to continue.