I despair of NHS hospital clinics admin

Your hairdresser must be very efficient, DaisyAnne!

Doctors need a simple system like hairdressers, that sends a reminder of your appointment to which you reply "yes" or "no" to whether you will be attending or not.

Apparently, many GP/hospital appointments are not cancelled in time to be refilled because people cannot find a way to get their message to anyone.

All the notices everywhere about how people dont turn up to appts.

That could be because the letters, emails and texts often arrive after the appointment time.
It has happened here a few times.
Or they change the location of the clinic that day and fail to tell the patient

So much money is wasted through inefficiency.

You need to fill in a form with the hospital or the department where you visit and ask for SMS messages on your mobile phone. I always get a text message reminding me of my appointment or a text telling me my appointment has been cancelled. Letters from hospitals are now very rare unless it is a letter confirming your first visit to a department to see a specialist. Even my GP has been authorised to send me SMS (short message service) messages. It has cut down on letters that can get lost in the post. I always receive a reminder of my appointment or a cancellation of my appointment the day before. It is much easier for staff to send multiple SMS messages at the same time rather than posting out letters to everyone.

Dh was once sent to the wrong clinic for a minor procedure - a few miles from the one he should have been told to go to.
So that was 2 appts. wasted.

A BiL had one of many previous letters re oncology appts. sent to an address he’d left 17 years previously! All others had gone to the right one - they evidently hadn’t deleted his old address.
Luckily the current residents forwarded it in time.

I don’t know whether it’s still a Thing, but when I was dealing with dementia I heard SO many complaints of appt. letters being sent to people with dementia, who’d v likely lose or throw them away, and would never remember - and (despite relatives pointing out that it’d be useless otherwise) staff refusing to send copies to relatives because of ‘patient confidentiality’ - if they didn’t yet have health and welfare P of A.
You do have to wonder how many appts. were wasted for this reason.