Figures obtained by Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, reveal an increase in the number of patients who failed to attend their NHS appointments from 2004/5. A total of 82,383 missed appointments were registered in 2005/2006 in England alone.

Commenting Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“Appointment systems must be designed around the needs of patients, not government targets.”

“The Government needs to investigate how to make the appointment system more effective in order for it to work. A lack of co-ordination means that resources are wasted and additional appointments are needed. This could easily be improved upon with some imagination. Why not remind patients by the mean of texts or email for example?

“Obviously, individual responsibility of patients is sometimes at fault but patients are not always to blame. Inflexible government targets have led to inconvenient appointment systems and patients being unable to get through to the surgery to cancel an appointment.

Notes:

The figures were obtained by a parliamentary question (837311) asked by Lynne Featherstone MP.

They show the number of patients failing to attend for inpatients admission to be up from 79444 in 2004/2005 to 82383 in 2005/2006, i.e. 3.7%.

The 10 worst NHS trust in 2005/2006 are:

Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust: 3512
The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust: 2740
Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust: 2046
Central Manchester & Manchester Children’s University NHS trust: 2004
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust: 1778
North West London Hospitals NHS trust: 1654
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust: 1652
Barnet & Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust: 1401
Barts and London NHS Trust: 1383
Northern Lincolnshire & Goole Hospitals NHS Trust: 1274

The 10 best NHS trust in 2005/2006 are:

Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust: 8
Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust: 15
SW London & St Georges NHS Trust: 17
East Somerset NHS Trust: 18
Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Trust: 27
Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS trust: 29
Bradford Hospiotals NHS Trust: 41
Milton Keynes General NHS Trust: 42
Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Trust: 50
Birmingham Women’s Healthcare Trust: 53