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.

@AliceMcK Thats a point I spent about 5 hours in a week on the phone at various times of day trying desperately to cancel an appointment I no longer needed. No one picked up the phone. I eventually left a voicemail and then got a snotty letter via my GP about wasting appointments by not cancelling it.

My son's an anaesthetist and he's had an entire list cancelled in the past because people hadn't taken their preop medication. The general public seem to be hopeless.

I know this is true but honestly I can't understand why. You get so many reminders texts about every nhs appt now, even phone calls for big ones. And clear info about how to cancel. You can even cancel by text!
What is the matter with people?

I didn't want to be the one to say it but my thoughts were along the same lines!

From family experiences the letters often don’t arrive until after the date if the appointment, or so close to it that it’s impossible to get time off work.

I don’t understand why they don’t give patients the option to use email rather than snail mail. Surely it would save many thousands in admin and postage costs.

My mum has had letters for appointments whereby the date had already passed.
Coincidentally, a lady at my GP practice, just this morning, complained that her letter to attend an appointment was weeks old.

I do think that the administration in the NHS might be a problem.

If someone moves or dies whilst on a waiting list , then perhaps the hospital doesn't get informed.

It's an enormous waste of time, resources and money.

If the NHS administration was perfect, and all those on the list had definitely been told when their surgery was, and in suffice time to reschedule if not convenient, then you’d have a point. I suspect that’s not the case, and particularly with the current disruption to the postal service.

My my late husband sadly had many events where surgery was required, and had he not chased constantly then at least 50% of the time he would not have been aware of the date surgery was booked until either after the event, or with less than 48 hours notice which, with the best will in the work, might not have been convenient. And before someone says, well, what’s more important than surgery - drop everything, 3 days a week he had to attend a different hospital for dialysis.

The NHSs reluctance to communicate by anything other than letter when it comes to surgery is part of the problem I think. It’s fine for nice middle class people with stable home lives. But what about those constantly moving around in rented accommodation or temporary accommodation? How up to date do you think the NHS is with current address info for all patients? And when an appointment is received at short notice, have you ever tried getting though to a hospital to cancel/defer/reschedule an appointment imposed upon you? The laughable thing is even when you tell them in advance when it’s not possible to attend surgery, an appointment will often come exactly when you aren’t available. To rub salt into the wound, appointments continued to come after he’d died. And that’s after I emailed his consultant directly to advise of his death.

The appointment systems are pretty shit. You don't get given a choice often. Can't get through to rearrange. Letters arrive after the appointment. It's not just people not being arsed.

It is mostly people not being arsed.

The same people recurrently DNA. There are some people who just occasionally do it due to missing a letter etc but other people are forever failing to turn up to or cancelling appointments then get huffy when they have to wait for another one

Probably dead or their condition escalated so in a and e or they couldn't get transported if they had requested it

I’ve worked privately and for the NHS as a speech therapist. Almost never had a DNA for a private appointment. In one of my NHS roles we had about 50% DNAs. Maddening.

No idea how it could possibly be feasible, but there should be a DNA fee, or if you miss 2 in a reasonable timeframe you waive the right to free treatment for a year. Of course that assumes robust systems to communicate appointments, and probably some exceptions like extreme weather, severe unexpected traffic disruption etc, but personally I've never had a problem. Text upon booking (letter too if for child/antenatal/hospital), text the day before (assuming not an on-the-day appointment). I did miss 1 health visitor appointment shortly after baby was born - sleep deprived, post c-section and they'd booked me one outside of my own home (usually at home for first couple weeks, especially post section) the other side of the nearby city. I wasn't able to drive (or lift baby in car seat) due to the recent section and husband was back at work, didn't realise til time of 🤷‍♀️

I'd like to think they were not all no shows for an elective procedure. I work in an NHS cardiology and we do lots of elective procedures. Yes sometimes people don't show up but in a patient's defence the admin side of things can be pretty poor at times. I think it's often a mix really. Most of my patients are so relieved to be seen.

They probably have already died. We notified nhs twice inc the medical surgery that DF was terminal and then that he had died and he still had an appointment for surgery

Why the hell do the NHS rely on physical letters in 2022?

People who no-show surgery should have to go private.

We had four weeks notice of the appointment. A delivery of the premed treatment by courier, with full instructions for use. And ample opportunities, with lots of phone numbers provided for rescheduling. How can anyone not see this type of event as people taking the piss and the NHS for granted? Sorry, I am livid at the waste.

I’ve had letters arrive after the appointment.

I’ve never deliberately missed any form of nhs appointment though, I’ve always cancelled and rearranged if I needed to.

I don’t know if I’ve been particularly lucky with the hospitals, but they now often call me twice to confirm the appt - once after the letter, and once the day before.

Oh and my local hospital has an online log in you access all appointments, results, medical records etc. So that used to ping me with anything related to a hospital, including appointments, or bloods ordered by the GP and assessed at the hospital. So potentially 2 texts (non hospital), or if hospital related it would be 2 texts, a letter and an email notification from online system. Hard to argue with that really

When I moved to the Netherlands I was so surprised when various hospital departments would ring me to schedule an appointment at a time convenient to me rather than just sending me a letter and expecting me to fit everything around them.

This must be such a productivity killer!

Gobsmacked, tbh.

given the serious nature of the procedure, though and the two year wait, could done actually have passed away during the delay?

you’d think all services would join the dots but they don’t.

Am a community midwife - during covid we started ringing everyone the day before to screen them for symptoms, our DNA rate dropped dramatically

We still do it

Last week I wasn't working the day before my clinic and noone rang it - 30-40% DNA rate, normally everyone turns up - or gets back to me to say they aren't attending

They definitivey need to look into this, but I doubt is due to people not caring about it? It is not like you wake up in the morning of your heart surgery and say "nah, cannot be bothered to do it today"
Some could have died while on the waiting list.
Late letters have happened to us, but luckily there is a text system that has saved us from DNA for minor appointments.
I think the consultant's secretaries could check up with the patient one week or so in advance?

The hospital that I attend sends text reminders. When I worked for a GP I had to ring non attenders and say that the doctor wanted to know their reason for not coming to the surgery!

And to all of you saying the no shows were probably dead... NO. this is a procedure that is carried out on people who have already survived cardiacs and all the complications. It's carried out to regulate irregular heart rhythms that are unsettling, but not life threatening.