French patients failing to attend GP appointments to be fined €5

FRENCH patients who fail to turn up to a medical appointment will be forced to pay a fine of €5 (£4.29).

Gabriel Attal, the prime minister, unveiled the penalty as president Emmanuel Macron’s government is under orders to cut spending given a shock rise in debt. French media has already dubbed it “the rabbit tax”: French for no-show is “poser un lapin”.

Penalising patients who fail to show up could free up to 20 million appointments a year, the prime minister insisted. “We can’t allow this to continue,” said Mr Attal.

French doctors record around 27 million missed appointments per year.

Under the plans, patients would have to provide debit or credit card details when booking an appointment. If they fail to turn up without giving 24 hours’ notice, doctors can fine them. But the decision would be at their discretion and they could exempt patients with a valid reason for failing to show up.

It is “a sum that may seem high to some, insufficient to others, but in any case, health is not free”, said Catherine Vautrin, a health minister. The aim was, she said, to “make patients more responsible” at a time when “many French people are finding it difficult to access healthcare”.

The plan sparked an angry response from doctors’ unions and patients’ groups. “This won’t work,” Patrick Pelloux, head of the emergency doctors’ union, told RMC radio. “It’s just a tax and the health service could suffer.”

Gérard Raymond, president of Assos Santé, a patients’ group, said: “This isn’t a way of making patients more responsible but an attempt to blame them and make them feel guilty for the system’s shortcomings.”

Luc Duquesnel, a doctor, said he would prefer to “educate people rather than tell professionals, ‘you’re going to tax people’, which will strain relations with our patients”.

The government wants the fines to start from Jan 1 and Mr Attal said new legislation would be brought before parliament. An earlier bill to introduce a penalty was passed last year by the majority-right Senate but then rejected by the National Assembly.

Mr Attal also announced that more doctors would be trained to try and reduce so-called “medical deserts” in areas of France with few or no GPS.