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.

Premature post —

— we think — only by ringing repeatedly until he can leave a message that, eg, he is overseas on business on the date of a nonurgent appt. (This particular hospital has recently converted to a good text management system)

Like others we have sometimes got postal notice within 48 hrs of an appt. I can well believe others DNA because the notice never arrives. I am still waiting for the postal results of my smear, from August, available online thru the GP since September.

I don’t think there is a viable way to charge some people for some appointments. It quickly becomes a slippery slope: first the DNAs, then smokers, the obese, the merely overweight, those who don’t exercise enough, etc. But I would like to see us do something similar to the French, who are leagues above us in health outcomes, and charge small co-pays for certain types of care. Those on limited incomes get a refund from the state.

Yes when I was sitting on the hospital bed waiting for my hysterectomy I heard the receptionists ringing round trying to find a no show.. they had just decided they didn't want it anymore, didn't think to tell anyone. We got enough text reminders beforehand saying how much the op cost and to let them know if not needed anymore..
It is fucking DISGUSTING! I spent so many tears of frustration waiting for my op.
Disgusting self absorbed arseholes.

Have you missed many people saying how hard they found it to cancel? In some cases spending hours trying to tell someone. No wonder many people give up.

We've had this an the problem was that our phone contract was set up to screen out "caller with held" numbers which is what our surgery - other than the receptionists - uses.

The no-shows should be expected to pay something before any missed appointment is rescheduled. I once had to book an appointement get an emergency passport, naturally the minute I put the phone down I looked for something else and found the passport. When I called to cancel they were surprised, most people didn't bother with that courtesy. Whe.n teaching we had parents not bother with Parents' Evening meetings because of a football match on TV then expected us to see them another day
Many people don't value what's free.

People still keep trotting out uninformed opinions without reading the research or even this thread. Sigh.

I'm not ignoring valid reasons Brefugee. But there are strong opinions on both sides expressed here. Not quite sure why you need to be snarky.

I'm not being snarky, @XingMing but you are ignoring the several reasons why people might not show, and how it might be mitigated. Sure, some people don't turn up. That is bad and they should be pursued to find out why.

But there are many many more reasons and examples here of why people don't show up.

I remember back in the day when patients were brought into the ward the day before and 'nil by mouthed' to avoid this kind of (very costly) cock-up happening.

Now there is no ward. To 'save money'. Went the same way as the essential ward clerks. Replaced by a jigsaw of failing databases and contact systems with missing pieces.

I wonder how many of those people were invited for their procedures by post, and did not receive the letters (although presumably some have premeds so know when the operations are due to happen).

But if you need to cancel you can't get through to anyone to cancel. Why does nobody answer the phones?

I find it quite difficult to believe that most people simply don't turn up. Of course there are a few entitled ones.

As for the roads being clear, the weather can be very localised. I have snow, there are people in the same town who do not!

I would give is that if you are waiting for a fairly urgent appointment, find out who is the secretary of the relevant consultant who runs the clinic and then call them for cancellations

Good advice.

With the caveat that many PAs are part-time and so don't answer the phones either as they are not there.

@XingMing You obviously care deeply about the NHS so you will be just as annoyed about the pavements not being gritted. After
all the protect the NHS rhetoric we have had over the last three years (some of which came from councils) you would think they would grit the pavements to protect the slips and falls that will add to NHS pressures. The hypocrisy from on high is breathtaking.

Having known someone gravely ill who kept missing surgeries due to her 'anxiety', I believe the DNA rates in the NHS are high.

That's interesting. But that wasn't the problem in our case. We both allow 'No Caller ID / withheld number' calls through precisely because of NHS calls. Everything comes through (annoyingly at times). We block scammers etc afterwards.

Even before the strike, I missed an outpatient appt because the letter didn't arrive until after the time of the appointment. And I once had the converse happen: rocked up a specialist unit, only to be told that the clinic had been cancelled and I should have known, because they'd sent me a letter by first class post the previous day.

That was no use when my appt was at 9.30, and the postman never came before about 11!

@XingMing a month ago i had to spend a morning ringing round various services to find A. letter sent by the service my daughter was referred to hadn't reached me B. dr had referred to the wrong service anyway C. dr had also apparently not received a letter from the wrong service telling them it was the wrong service hence I had to chase them to re-refer to the right service. I now know better , having once sat on what I thought was a long wait list for 9 months for an important diagnostic scan only to find i'd been discharged as hadn't responded to the letter i'd never received; and another time waited for 6 months before I found out the service had rejected the referral 6months prior due to incomplete info from GP. Shocking incompetence at times even without postal strikes ( and i'm an ex-hcp so completely aware that some people do DNA without good reason.)

Deposits need to be introduced.

This! Why can't they text you - my dentist does a few days before. Not exactly rocket science!

If there are lots of DNA's and I'm there on time, why do the clinics run 30-60 min late and who are all the people in the waiting room sighing?!

It makes me very cross. I ensure I turn up for all of my appointments because it's for my benefit and the professional I am seeing has taken the time and effort to see me.

Some of the examples are very exaggerated. But clinics overbook. They know they will have DNAs. When my DH worked in the NHS he said they could not operate without DNAs, it was built into the system. In the same way travel firms overbook planes.

I had this happen to me in the summer. It was for an outpatients appointment, not surgery.

Got the letter at 2pm, appointment for 4.30pm the same day. Had to drop everything and go to the hospital right away. Had the letter been for any other day that week I would have been out and not seen it until I was home from work and missed the appointment. No postal delays - the postmark was the day before. Raised it with the clerk/receptionist on arrival at the department and got a disinterested shrug.

@CharityShopChic The clerk probably knows the issues, has raised them, and got nowhere.

Yup, this is pretty much my DP's current experience. He is a very conscientious man and it is hurtful and frustrating to be basically accused of being a time-waster and a liar.

A useful piece of research would be to follow some patients' journeys through the care they receive in detail and where it goes wrong on the admin front.

I’m not excusing people who don’t turn up - IMO they should be fined - but NHS admin cock ups certainly do happen.
Dh was once sent to the wrong centre for a minor surgical procedure - it was too far to make it to the other in time, so a complete waste of everybody’s time.

And a BiL having cancer treatment only received the letter about an important appt. In time because it had been forwarded from his old address - he’d moved 17 years previously! In the meantime letters had been sent to the correct one. Why on earth the old one hadn’t been deleted goodness knows.

Not to mention NHS refusal to stop sending appt. letters to people with dementia, who will very likely hide or bin them, and forget even if they don’t - and equally refusing - on the grounds of patient confidentiality - to at least send a copy to a relative.

If relatives have not yet been able to get power of attorney - and it’s often far from easy - this is just yet another hassle and waste of NHS time.

That's so true.

I broke my wrist slipping on an icy pavement a few years ago. I then missed a follow-up appointment because I couldn't drive and the trains were cancelled because of ice, taxis were only doing local journeys and I couldn't get through on the phone.

The fracture didn't set properly, and required corrective surgery a year later, so that icy pavement cost the NHS a lot of money.