Unacceptable

I work in a retirement living community and have seen instances of appointments not being attended because the patient transport, organised through the hospital, failed to turn up on time. Or because, like a previous poster, they've noted it down in their diary on the wrong date or at the wrong time.
I, myself, have been in receipt of a letter cancelling an appointment for podiatry owing to the ill health of the Podiatrist; didn't go, received another letter berating me for non-attendance!
I'm sure not all, "no shows" are for flaky, selfish reasons. Don't be so quick to judge.

It seems to me that a retired GP who has contributed on this thread (MoMB) does not think this a huge issue, and a letter to the Times from a doctor, mentioned by Grandmama, similar. Another letter I read today in the Guardian from a retired GP argues that missed appointments actually save NHS money, on prescriptions and referrals! To quote If you want to address waste in the NHS I would suggest that getting rid of NHS England would be a good starting point. He also makes the point that whilst very frustrating for patients waiting weeks for an appt. costs incurred in running of surgery and staff are incurred whether patients turn up or not. I can't help but think this is a ploy by NHS England to "soften up" the public to the legitimacy of paying for certain NHS services. I hope I'm wrong, because I believe in a universal health service free at the point of delivery.

I worked in an office based job in a hospital for years. When I rang patients who had missed apps, they would make various excuses. Letters not received, they'd phoned to cancel but couldn't remember who they spoke to, got their dates mixed up. I could often tell who was genuine and who wasn't, but impossible to prove. Apps via Email and mobiles don't always work. Often it's impossible to get hold of patients on phone during the day as most people work and can't answer their mobiles and if you leave messages some people say they never got them. Difficult problem to solve because we are dealing with human beings. Many are thoughtful and conscientious but some don't care who they affect.

From personal experience, it happens that surgeries and hospitals fail to register a call or letter cancelling an appointment , and then accuse the patient of failing to attend.

Sorry should have been non attendance.

Not for most people Chewbacca but some don't have mobiles, they may live chaotic lives, may be having mental health problems, living with dementia, or sometimes it is the hospital/surgery error, as previously mentioned. I don't know if they've surveyed the reasons for not attendees.

I have GP appointment for next Friday. Within minutes of making the appointment, I received a text message confirming the date and time and it asked that, if I no longer required the appointment, that I should let them know asap because each appointment costs £45.00.
I'll get another text message 24 hours before the appointment reminding me again. There really is no excuse for failing to let them know.

There's a letter in today's Times (Friday) from a doctor to say that the cost of an appointment is notional and that a broken appt doesn't cost anything and gives the doctor time to catch up. He also pointed out that it's important to look at the reason for missed appts - maybe the patient is better, no transport, a problem in the family. Maybe the appt letter didn't arrive on time.

I really think the admin side of the nhs is what lets it down, to the extent that it puts peoples lives at risk.

My daughter and I always said that the country must be full of people taking wrong combinations of medicines, not being sent follow up letters, being generally overlooked and falling through the net.

I had an appointment in the OP dept of the local hospital. I could not attend as I was going on holiday. I rang the hospital to cancel but they could not rearrange another appointment and I was advised to make another one on my return from holiday. You can imagine my annoyance, when upon my return, I found a letter from the G.P. surgery admonishing me for missing an appointment and told that if I missed another appointment I would be deleted from the hospital list.
The moral of this story, always ask for the person's name when cancelling an appointment. Of course they could always give you a false name!!!

Our surgery send you a text reminder for your appointment at the end it has “cancel” in bold italics and if you wish to cancel you just click on “cancel”.

No idea of technology behind this but it is working efficiently.

Not just GP and hospital appointments that have no shows! I worked in an opticians for a number of years, and the number of people that didn't bother to cancel appointments was unbelievable! One of my jobs at one point, was to ring up the no shows the day after (a job I hated) and ask if they wanted to book another appointment. The excuses I was given ranged from "my eyes have got better" to "couldn't be bothered"! Several people never turned up whatever you did, despite having a txt message sent the day before the appointment and/or a reminder phone call. One lady, we gave up actually booking an appointment for, just told her to come in and she 'd be fitted in - usually into a gap of a no show!
When I lived in Australia, you got charged for the appointment even if you rang to cancel the appointment, unless you called at least 3 hours beforehand!

I heard an NHS spokesperson say yesterday on Radio 4 that the phone system for cancelling your appointment was different to the phone system for booking one. Que? I thought hearing this, you are making it up on the hop!

Whilst the OP’s idea seems a good one I don’t think it could be implemented. People would refuse to pay and someone would have to judge if a DNA was justified. Impossible because people often don’t tell the truth especially when it comes to money.

I used to work in reception at a dr surgery. Could not do it very long as too frustrating. Those who miss their appointments often shout the loudest or exaggerate demanding another appointment. Receptionists are not medically trained and if someone says their condition is urgent they get an appointment whatever. Some people down play their symptoms and others want an urgent appointment for a cold.
I often had to tell a lovely old lady or gentleman not to play down their condition and booked them in urgently. Life is not fair - and Dr appointment even less.

Some years ago, I was admitted into hospital as an emergency for a very minor procedure. As GP booked me in, he said. It is a day surgery job, you will be back home later this afternoon.

It was actually three days before I got home, because the procedure kept being delayed. At midday the following day, still awaiting my very minor surgery, I heard a nurse describe me as a bed blocker!!! When I heard this I went to Reception and said that as my minor problem had improved since admission and as I was a bed blocker, I would discharge myself and ring DH to come and collect me.

The look of horror on their faces was a pleasure to see. All of a sudden I was told I was going down to surgery in 30 minutes and preparations would start now. The operation happened as described. I was there for another day and it was nearly 2, and finally I did discharge myself, but that is another story.

I think even a donation box on the desk with a polite notice about missed appointments would be worthwhile.

At least it would be easy to regulate.

It is something that sounds good in theory, but would be difficult to put in place. How do you find out why someone missed an appointment? When you do find out, what would be your criteria for deciding what is a good enough reason to waive the fine and what isn't? How do you collect the fine and what do you do about non-payers?

I agree that people missing appointments is a burden on the NHS, but I don't believe that fines for no-shows is the answer.

Maybe such a chaotic and unsuitable appointment system results in patients really not caring if they feel better by a week next Thursday.
They'll just not go for an appointment, which can mean sitting in the waiting room for 1.5 hours sometimes.

When the 'Beast from the east' hit I got snowed in and missed an appointment I didn't bother cancelling because I knew from experience that no one ever answers the phone. The systems don't work, unfortunately.

Last year I had two appointment letters for different Hospitals but for the same time & day . Now with the best will in the world I can't split myself in two, one appointment was for a scan the other for the Consultant who needed the scan results before the Consultation., which only goes to prove departments don't "talk to each other". I rang the Hospital, lady saw the funny side & changed my appointment with the Consultant a month later luckily it wasn't critical

My dentist has a list of missed appointments. These come to an average of 350+ a month. Because many people pay for dental treatment this must have a financial impact on the practice.

However, I don't see how a patient missing a doctor/hospital appointment costs money. I thought this had actually been pointed out by a consultant.

It is, of course, very rude to miss an appointment which could have been offered to someone else as waiting lists are often very long.

I do agree that NHS admin needs a good shake-up. Dh was recently sent to the wrong centre for a minor procedure, so it was impossible for him to make it in time to the right one. For all I know that could be down as a 'missed appointment' though it was not at all his fault.

My BiL was recently sent a hospital appt. letter to an address where he hadn't lived for 17 years - this despite several such letters having been sent to the correct address in the meantime. If it hadn't been for the current resident forwarding it in time, he'd have missed that appt.

Also I've heard of umpteen cases of appt. letters being sent to people with dementia, despite relatives pointing out time and again that even if they don't just throw the letter out or hide it, the person will never remember.

How many missed appts. such cases must amount to, I wouldn't like to guess.
'patient confidentiality' is always the reason given - often they won't send a duplicate to the relative who can make sure they attend.

Of course redirecting the post could be the answer, but this may not be possible unless the person has been officially deemed to lack capacity, which may never actually happen, or at least not until after hospital appt. problems have arisen.

My brother in law lives in Norway and there you have to pay about £10 to visit a GP or the hospital. Seems a good idea to me, with the obvious exceptions of people who have to go often due to certain conditions and those unable to afford it.

There is no doubt that our wonderful NHS needs funds and a small charge isn't too much to ask from the majority. It would help people to realise the importance of the doctor's services.

It could be that the people missing appointments have forgotten, as they booked 5 weeks ago.

Yes, it's disgraceful.
In many countries - including some of those where the healthcare is supposed to be so much better - people have to pay - albeit maybe not much - for GP appointments.

A Swedish friend tells me that in Sweden everybody pays a small amount for GP and A&E visits, and for prescriptions and the 'hotel' element of hospital stays.
And this is in a relatively high tax country, popularly supposed to be a socialist Utopia.

Given the state the NHS is in, IMO its high time charges were introduced here, not just for the income, but to stop so many people abusing the service.

I don't suppose any govt. will ever have the guts, though - the 'free' NHS is such a sacred cow - there would be howls of outrage from here to eternity. The party of whatever colour would be terrified of losing votes, since whichever might propose it, the other would vow to vote it out. All any of the useless lot of them really care about is staying in power.

icanhandthemback, there was the day they cancelled the surgeons operating session, but forgot to tell him or two of the patients on the list, one of the patients was DD. Fortunately she had an assertive surgeon who said 'I'm here, 2 patients are here. They will have their surgery' - and they did.

Then there are the dressing clinics who give a whole clinics full of patients the same appointment - 9.30 and some have to wait until 12.15 before they are seen.

I think the NHS has to pull it's own socks up before castigating it's patients