NHS LOSES MILLIONS AS ONE IN TEN MISS APPOINTMENTS

MORE than a million patients have missed hospital appointments in the past six years, costing the NHS almost £130million.

Scottish Government figures have revealed that 1,059,293 people failed to attend an appointment between 2010 and 2015.

It is estimated each missed appointment costs NHS Scotland £120, meaning a total of £127,115,160 over those six years.

That equates to an average annual figure of £21,185,860.

One in ten hospital appointments is recorded as ‘did not attend’.

Yesterday, Scottish Tory public health spokesman Miles Briggs called on the Government to explore all options, such as fines for those who miss appointments. He said: ‘This is clearly a massive strain on the NHS at a time when it can least afford it.

‘We appreciate, when talking about millions of hospital appointments, there will be cases of some being missed. But most would be astonished that people don’t turn up to these around 10 per cent of the time, costing the NHS a huge amount of money.

‘The Scottish Government needs to take more action, like investing in improving technology so patients can be reminded more easily.

‘But it’s not making enough of an impact. Health boards should be given the ability to explore the idea of fining patients who repeatedly fail to turn up without any decent reason.

‘That would ease the financial pressure this issue puts on hospitals and deter those serial non-attenders from treating the health service with such contempt.’

But a spokesman for Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘People can have very good reasons for not being able to attend appointments – and it is all too typical of the Tories that their first instinct is to want to fine NHS patients.

‘We have absolutely no plans to do so – it would send entirely the wrong message, potentially deterring people from ensuring they get the treatment they need.’