To think that if the NHS sends you an appointment for a significant surgical procedure, you turn up>

[XingMing]

DH has waited two years for a (complicated) day surgery on his heart. He turned up for it at 7 am this morning and of the six scheduled booked patients, two arrived. There was a surgical team of ten arranged, who stood around waiting. If this is the normal, and the doctors, surgeons and nurses seemed to think it was, then complaints about underfunding the nhs funding needs should be kicked backed to the public. It's reasonable to expect the treatment paid for via taxation, but it is unreasonable to be so cavalier about non attendance. This was a procedure that cost the NHS £20k or more in salary costs... and two-thirds of the list were no shows. Can you tell that I am incensed for the people on waiting lists and the taxpayers funding the waste? For the record, the roads were all clear.

You’d be surprised at how many people DNA every day.

As someone who works in NHS, yes the DNA (did not attend) rate is ridiculously high!

I'm really surprised people don't turn up for scheduled surgery.

Totally agree. Slightly different but I had my antenatal booking appt at 14 weeks earlier this year, so late and on a Sunday (extra shift for midwives) because midwives were so booked up. Only me and one other person showed up. They had 8 no shows. Midwives said it was normal. Totally ridiculous and embarrassing.

Utterly shocking but not surprising.

Appalling, I have a hospital appointment on Thursday, albeit private. I had to prepay several months ago and they have emailed me everyday for the last month checking I am coming telling me how long the waiting list is, and I can still get a refund etc. Perhaps the NHS could be more proactive in this respect?

There are plenty of threads on here about patients whose appointments were NOT conveyed to them on time, or indeed at all. Letters going out too late, cock-ups in administration, even appointment letters being sent on the day of the operation.

So, I wonder if there has been some kind of research into the reasons behind the high levels of DNA - there must be some reasons in common that the NHS can tackle by altering the way it works - is it a booking problem perhaps, or appointments so far in advance that people forget, or a communication problem where people try to cancel but it never gets through to the clinicians? It's very interesting.

That does happen @AutumnCrow but it also happens a lot in primary care.
People are forever complaining they can’t get appoints their surgery but there are many appointments each week where people did not attend. It’s such a waste.

I would worry about letters getting to people at the moment, though that can't explain everyone.

Community Speech Therapist here... about 30% DNA rates for initial assessments. It is criminal.

I mean that the appointments at GP surgery have been booked by the person themselves and they still don’t turn up.

They're probably dead from having to wait 2 years....

I did a small flu clinic today. Last one to finish the vaccines we have remaining.

Out of 40 appointments I had 9 DNAs. Two of those only made their appointments this morning and DNAd this afternoon. The others had already missed appointments made in our previous Saturday clinic so we’re rebooked.

They all made their own appointments (not allocated) and had text confirmations as well as a text reminder the day before.

It happens every year.

In my regular clinics in primary care we have a significant number of DNAs each week.

Our local hospital is actually superb at routine appointment letters and managing patient flow. I have seen it at first hand for the last 18 months, and they manage it very well.

That is high. But you don't know the reasons.

It could be they missed a letter. They could have been relying on someone else to transport them to show up. They could have died.

Many probably didn't know about it, or some could have been dead. People do die waiting for surgery.

If only a device existed whereby NHS admin could check with patients that they had received their appointment letter, were able to attend, and all set to come in at that date and time. It could involve human voices, like the old days.

At my recent smear the nurse thanked me for turning up. Quite surprised by that I said ‘why wouldn’t I have turned up - I had an appointment!’ She explained that most of her booked patients didn’t bother turning up. Out of a whole day of appointments only about 10% showed up. When she sent a text reminder in the morning (from her own personal mobile phone) that increased to around 30%. She seemed to think that was a success. I left feeling very depressed thinking that the NHS is no longer fit for purpose or viable in its current form.

Playing devils advocate here, how many had cancelled within a reasonable time and the hospital had not updated its system?

We moved a few years ago, I had several scheduled appoints for myself and 2 DCs, I contacted and cancelled all hospital appointments with lots of notice. All of them I got text reminders about a couple of days earlier and I called and spoke to various secretaries, clinics and admin staff and then I get letters sent saying I never showed up. One appointment automatically rescheduled for 6 months later I just ignored it because I was sick of it by then, as well as costing me a fortune going round in circles calling from overseas.

Seems madness if I can’t attend I let them know

I went “paperless”, then later discovered my email provider blocks NHS emails, so I wasn’t getting the appointment notifications.

I think that generally people are crap and am dismayed by all the DNA stories in this thread. However in the specific case that you refer to it wouldn't surprise me, with it being heart surgery, if a few people just chickened out as it sounds scary.

Hope you DH is doing OK.

Yeah. Unfortunately I have had three letters for hospital appointments that arrived after the appointment, in the last two years.

In my case... Community speech therapy ... 30% dna rate for initial assessments for children, none. We would know if someone called to cancel as it would be noted on same system as appointment bookings.

These were people scheduled and waiting for heart electrophysiology. It's hardly trivial health checks.