Rishi will introduce £10 fines for missed GP and hospital appointments

[GreenLunchBox]

How will that work, then? If you miss the phone call they'll fine you? Sounds like a license to print money to me 😂

Also so many patients receive letters from hospitals saying they've missed an appointment when they never actually received the letter inviting them for the appointment in the first place. God knows why hospitals still use snail mail. This is completely unworkable.

These two are acting like they're running for student council rather than PM of the country (see Truss wittering on about making Oxbridge interview every student that gets straight As). Tinkering around the edges and stoking culture wars when we're actually heading towards an actual catastrophe this autumn.

Agree. There are loads of big economic and social issues that need urgent attention and strong leadership. Why is he pissing about with petty shit like this? It's pub stool talk, not policy making.

I got a random text message saying I had a hospital appointment in a week. Luckily I'm in the UK otherwise I would have difficulty ringing them back. So if I missed the appointment - clearly one made because someone else cancelled - I would be fined?

Stupid man.

How much is it going to cost to send out fine letters and have a debt recovery team to collect all the non payments? More than the £10 fine I would say

Great. More NHS staff getting abuse if they try to enforce this.

Last week I had a patient miss a 40 minute appointment & one miss a 20 min appointment. They could easily cancel but chose not to show up.

I knew they wouldn’t show but I couldn’t not make the follow up appointments. it is frustrating when other people are desperate to get a slot but I don’t see how charging would help.

As long as I get a tenner every time they fuck me about by not showing up for an appointment, not phoning when they said they would, failing to prepare for an appointment so I have to attend twice, cancelling, losing test results, issuing the wrong prescription etc...

I'll be raking it in.

Yup absolutely completely unworkable. £10 is not enough to be a deterrent, so won't work in stopping time wasters. And it will never be cost effective to administer the fines. Every single person who they try to fine will contest, often for good reason. They were too sick to attend/they tried to cancel but couldn't get through/the appt was made over the phone and they misheard/hospital transport was late blah blah blah. GPs surgeries don't have time to administer this, and to be frank we are all paid whether our patients turn up or not, and are actually quite grateful when they don't as we finally get a chance to catch up on some admin.

As people can't get face to face GP appointments, I doubt they are missing them! I know that it was a problem pre-covid and there was some talk of introducing fines then. However, you would need to start text reminders etc.

Hospital appointments would need to be completely rethought. No sending out appointments by letter, so the letter arrives after the event! Most people have access to email and text, so send them that way. Send a text reminder the day before. Make it possible for people to cancel them by pressing a button, rather than having to call and nobody picks up the phone. You can't fine people for not cancelling when they can't cancel!

The current body of research shows that the majority of appointments missed by patients are ultimately caused by the behaviour of the medical provider. Change the NHS's behaviour and fewer appointments will be missed and healthcare will be better.

Blame the patients and score popularity points but change nothing.

The NHS needs a web based booking system for this to be anywhere near appropriate. If people can make and cancel appointments online without needing to spend hours on hold to the hospital then I am all for it, they should even make it £50.

But with the current phone based system this is wholly unfair.

Indeed this. I always think this generally when service providers want to charge customers for not turning up for appointments. They don't compensate me when they cancel the appointment!

This. I am happy to pay a ten pound fine if I miss an appointment. Obviously, it works both ways and I can say I would be very rich indeed.

Over 6 million people on waiting lists, thousands of them getting into debt paying for treatment just to avoid being disabled/in too much pain to work/function ... all of this is caused by government and institutional mismanagement of the NHS, not by patients missing appointments.

Mind, I guess it's a consistent development of the current NHS working model ie paying for healthcare and not getting it.

So will Dr's be fined for missing appointments too? We were expecting a phone appointment on the 27th we had nothing nada zip zilch nothing of course I had to wait until after closing time because they close the surgery at 5pm but run phone calls until 7pm I've been unable to get in touch since so will they be fined?

Seriously a system where the Dr will ring you on the 27th is open to abuse are you not supposed to drive pee wash up leave your phone in the other room in case you miss your appointment and get fined? If they gave you an actual "time slot" it wouldn't be so bad but they don't

Also so many patients receive letters from hospitals saying they've missed an appointment when they never actually received the letter inviting them for the appointment in the first place

I agree.

Though recently had family have to take time off to get to hospital to find then that hospital had cancelled the appointment after he got there.

Week later and now signed to worrying symptoms off he went for next appointment - got there equipment broke and staff shortages - so they told him to get himself to another hospital - it was a completely different town a fair distance away though they assure him he would be seen - he had to get train there as cant currently drive- but did it and did get seen and the staff there were every helpful - it seem to be some private contract as it car park lorry - it was a scan - and unfortunately does look serious.

It was good he got seen - and we're grateful staff had a backup plan - but twice that department clearly had issues dealing with people who were turning up.

Our local hospital is a nightmare for parking. I had appointment for my ds last month.. i had to queue for over an hour to get in the car park... staff were telling me people give up and cancel appointments

If you don't get an exact time for a phone call then it is unfair if they don't at least move to the next patient then try you again after. Many people will be at work with permission to take the call.

It's got one...... eReferral for hosptials and NHS App (or similar EMIS providers) for GP's etc. The trouble is, our GP, for example, has turned theirs off, as everyone was booking for non-urgent issues, and they therefore reverted to telephone triage.

I went for a mammogram recently, luckily the consultant looked it up on the system to tell me when it was as the appointment letter arrived the day after the appointment. Which was pretty much useless anyway as I hadn't received the instructions not to wear deodorant or talc.

Yet more evidence that sunak does not live or operate in the same world as us and why you can't have a billionaire making policy for the plebs like us. I guarantee he has never been to an NHS appointment or waited on hold for hours to try and get one ever in his adult life.

Does it work both ways? Just wondering as I'm bored of being told that 'X from admissions will call me back' and never hearing from them. I'm bored of leaving messages that aren't acknowledged (because the phones aren't answered)

I'm spending a lot of time chasing them for any information about my care at the moment, can I claim that back?

He couldn't get back the money lost on fraud over fake Covid claims, so I don't see how he'll be able to make this work.

The two of them are as bad as each other. No true policies or thought - just gimmick statements.

We need a general election.

I think I've got a hospital appointment coming up. I'm not sure and I don't know how to find out. It was originally in 2019. Then it was cancelled and I was given another appointment at a different hospital. Repeat that about 6 times and somewhere along the line I've lost track of when it is, where it is and who the consultant is.

Huh. I wish I had a tenner for every time I've been unable to get a GP's appointment.

I'm for the charge. I agree though that my first thought was how they'd manage running late themselves. I recently had an "am" telephone call, I was ready from 8 am, had taken half a day off work and booked myself back in to work from 1:30pm. I had a missed call at 1:33, no apology, no offer of a ring back. But I would hope for a reasonable way of managing that, i.e. not charging for that. And something needs to happen to reduce wasted appointments.

The idea of £10 fines is only a good idea to someone who blatantly doesn’t use the NHS regularly, or in over stretched areas.

it’s a bloody stupid idea.

People generally miss appointments either for missed letters or genuine reasons (my DD had an appointment a few weeks ago that was “missed” because she was in A&E receiving treatment for an accident that morning so would that be a fine or not?).

It’ll end up in a circumstance where someone who can’t afford a fine is then unable to book further appointments because they can’t pay what they owe and then minor things will be left to develop into more serious conditions.

Nothing truss or sunak say now will happen. The Tories will be out of power in 18 months, whoever is leader then will be ditched