to rhink the reason why so many NHS appointments are not attended is......

[HookedOnHooking]

People simply cannot get through to cancel or change them.

I have rung over and over and over again and cannot get through. Currently been on hold for 20 minutes.......

I've missed several appointments. I moved house recently. The hospital keep sending letters to my old address. I have told them several times about my new address, my GP has updated my details but the hospital likes to change my details back to my old address.

My Dad has received letters for appts after the date of the appt too. Very frustrating!

I don't know how much, if any, of it is to do with some Trusts outsourcing their clerical work to overseas providers - I know that's caused some issues in the one I used to work in!

It is crazy that they can't sort this out better. Sending a letter which arrives either on the day of the appointment, or after, is nuts. This needs to be stopped - if such short notice occurs, then bloody well phone the patient!

Just to say about letters saying you'd DNA'd - they are usually dictated by a doctor from a generated list on the day. So we're told these people haven't rocked up please send letters. If admin don't correct list we have no way of knowing.

have also tried today to reschedule an app.
test rests are not back yet and without it's a case of wasted time..
but. cannot. get. through.

My dad had a hospital appointment to discuss his CT scan results non appointment came for the scan so I called to find out when it was as my dad has Alzheimer's. It was for the week after his results appointment

I have had a terrible time dealing with anxiety and made an appt 3 weeks in advance with my GP only to be kept waiting over an hour and a half in a room fi of people.

I cracked as I was about to start crying and so told the receptionist just to forget it.

Appalling way to treat people especially when they are subjecting them to the thing which they find the hardest to deal with. ( busy places and timekeeping.)

Euphemia I'm having exactly the same problem. I'm at a loss with what to do. It's been almost 4 years now

I "missed" an appointment the other day. What actually happened is I got some god awful d&v bug which started the night before my 8.50 appointment. The line you call to cancel opens at 9am!!

And yet it's still considered a DNA and I've been discharged from the clinic snotty woman I spoke to told me it's my own fault for not calling earlier

This is why I have limited sympathy with complaints about underfunding. There must be a huge amount of wasted resource because of appointments missed due to no/late letters, huge postage costs etc.

My DH recently tried to cancel an appointment for a minor operation. He phoned umpteen times over many days but was never able to get through. Sometimes the phone just rang out and sometimes it went to answer phone. He left messages saying he couldn't attend and asking them to call him back to confirm they'd got the message. They never called and eventually he gave up. On the day of the operation he got a call from the hospital asking him where he was! What a waste.

I have been discharged a few times from different clinics for not attending...had they told me about the appointment I would have turned up! Its only that I'm on top of who I need to see etc and have chased it up that has resulted in me finding out I was discharged

Waited 9 months for first appointment, got an appointment letter and it was for 2 weeks before I received it! Letter only marked as going out the day before too so cant blame the post! Phoned to sort it out and the lad I spoke to kept asking me why I didn't turn up though! Put the phone down in the end and called a different department and sorted it that way, but I was discharged after not turning up to initial appointment that they told me about 2 weeks after it happened!!!

Alder hey is great for this, you can do it online and a new appointment is sent out the same day.

bendybrick
Don't think it is your hospital ... mine begins with A. Expect this is a general problem - all calls get routed to one poor sod who is handing out paper hankies to the distressed at the desk whilst queues build up and phone calls can't be answered.

I had an appointment letter which arrived 7 days before the appointment. It was for the one day of the week that I work (and they had moved the clinic from another day). I rang to change it. Didn't have any problem getting through but I did point out to them that especially with the holiday season approaching, giving 7 days notice is not enough as people are likely to arrive back from holiday and find the appointment letter on their doormat for an appointment they have now missed. I was told that the letters are not sent by the hospital but by a 3rd party and they are supposed to send them 10 days before - which they probably do, but they take 3 days to arrive if you are lucky.

Our hospital now uses an automated telephone reminder service which operates 7 days before the appointment. It rings your mobile twice (if it doesn't get you the 1st time). You are asked a series of questions which culminates in you confirming if you are going to the appointment. If you indicate 'No' it puts you through to the booking clerk. If they don't get you on your mobile, they then start on your landline - usually around tea time. We've got 2 appointments this week on Thurs and Friday so I was hounded by the system last week as it was not convenient for me to answer my mobile when they rang.

It makes me cross when I see those notices up about missed appointments as I know that it is not always the patients to blame - although I have no doubt that there are some people who just don't turn up.

My surgery is pretty bad for this. Once you do get through the GPs are wonderful, but you have to ring at 8:30 on the day and wait to get through - most of the time the appointments have gone, so you're advised to 'try your luck' the next day at 8:30. Unless you get a real ticking off for not calling at 8:30, which you did - you were just waiting in the queue. It's doubly hard when you've been sent a letter telling you that you need to make an appointment for x day - then you can't because you can't get through at 8:30...

Conversely, my dad's surgery are amazing. Since I'm registered as his carer, I get text alerts for all of his appointments and his upcoming ones in case he forgets or has trouble getting there - I can either call or email to rearrange. I have no idea how they do this, but it makes both of our lives so much easier.

Yup we spent days trying to get through to cancel an appointment (we were both at work so couldn't spend hours on hold) and eventually we gave up. Only to receive a voicemail the evening before the appt telling us it had been cancelled.

I fully expect the situation to worsen after the next round of cuts.

Another fun one is the stupid self check in machine, every time I go to the doctors surgery there is someone who tries to sign in but it directs them to the receptionist, so they tell the receptionist they tried to use the machine but it didn't work, unfortunately before they finish their sentence the receptionist waves them off with an "it's fine" one woman got pretty pissed off for then not getting their appointment because they hadn't signed in and they were going to have to wait another week, receptionist was an unfeeling cow and refused to accept any responsibility, this was as I was leaving almost an hour later! Since then I've started jumping in like a nosey lady and clarifying it to the receptionist >.>

Though I got a text last week to 'remind' me about an appointment this week, I had gone in the day before and the receptionist swore black was blue I hadn't been allocated an appointment yet...

I was sent an apt for '12w scan' for 14+1 - the very last day the downs screen can be done.
I rescheduled but they wouldnt let me move it much earlier , saying bizzarely you cant do it much earlier (can be done from around 12w)
So they booked 13+2 when they scanned they measured baby as 13+6. As babies do grow at different rates.
I feel very frustrated for all the people going to their scans thinking they will get the downs screening and finding out 'its too late'

I think the appointments are always going to be an issue as they control it with no input from the patient.
They can be set up like 6m in advance and by then you can have easily forgotten. So the text reminders are a good idea.

My local surgery has just published its "didn't turn up" figures for April. There were 1,098 i.e. 36 every day of the month (even higher per day if you allow for weekends when the surgery is closed).

I simply don't believe that they were all, or even most, due to failed letters, couldn't get through etc., especially when there is an online appointment and cancellation facility.

April was a pretty typical month in DNAs.

This is at a time when you have to wait up to 3 weeks to get an appointment at this surgery.

The NHS has its faults but there are people out there who take it utterly for granted and these sort of figures really are poor.

My doctors surgery uses the Patient Access app so you can book and cancel via that. it's brilliant.

I also managed to find an email address for the hospital and email them f I can't make or want to change appointments

Grimble - I thought this thread was about hospital appointments as opposed to GP surgeries (you don't often get letters to attend there afaik) . 1098 missed at one surgery?? Bloody hell, that's a massive number - no wonder you have to wait so long to see your GP

If so many people fail to turn up to appointments, why do you have to wait so long to see the doctor when you are there? Imagine if everyone turned up

YANBU

My GP takes about 4 or 5 hours to answer and has a busy tone all the time.

I got a letter for an appointment for my baby on the Friday, for the next Wednesday, it was impossible to make it so I rang until Wednesday and never got through, an hour after my "missed appointment" I got a call!!

There are signs all over the surgeries and hospitals with statistics about wasted appointments and ringing to cancel, I'm guessing a lot of people try and give up.

Ah the missing letter problem. I had that last year when the first I knew of an appt was a text message reminder that had no contact details for the dept. Which was a complete pain as I was in another country at the time for work and needed to rearrange it. Took me nearly an hour phoning different departments to track the right one down and change it. Was at least two weeks before the letter for the new appt turned up.

The text reminders are very useful, except when you have several dc, or appointments at different departments of the same hospital, and all texts say "Don't forget your appointment at 2.50 tomorrow at XYZ Hospital."

Whose appointment? Mine? Dc1's? Dc2's?

Which department? Audiology? Paediatric Audiology? Gynae?

At least I know which hospital and when!