Nick Gibb MP visited the Park Surgery in Littlehampton to discuss with Dr Tim Kimber the serious and increasing issue of missed appointments. Dr Kimber is very concerned about the problem and asked to meet me to discuss the issue.
Statistics collated by the surgery show that between April and June 2018, over 550 appointments were missed by patients. In other words, on 550 occasions a registered patient of the practice made an appointment to see a doctor and then failed to turn up for the appointment. This represents an average of over 5% of all appointments being missed and more than 150 lost hours.
Nick Gibb said, “It is very wasteful and costly to the NHS when patients fail to turn up to a doctor’s appointment - a simple phone call is all that is needed if events make it difficult or impossible to attend. Most people would regard it as a courtesy to their doctor to let the practice know if they can no longer make the appointment
“The Park Surgery has already tried a range of measures to help reduce the number of no-shows, including reminder text messages.
“The Government recently announced a huge increase in spending on the NHS, increasing its annual funding by £20 billion a year by 2023. But every penny of that money needs to be spent on patient care rather than on wasted missed appointments.”
Photo: Nick Gibb with Dr Tim Kimber in Dr Kimber’s examination room at the Park Practice, Littlehampton.