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.

I've spent the last 90 days dealing with my DMIL's last illness and death, which involved her spending 27 hours waiting for an ambulance to hospital with a broken hip, followed by four weeks in an acute trauma orthopaedic ward only to die 6 hours after discharge back to her care home. She was 93 and frail, so I am not surprised by this. But I have had brilliant joined up care for breast cancer recently, and DH has had well managed care when necessary for the last 15 years, for heart issues.

My mum was rung up last month at 8am asking where she was. She was apparently meant to be at hospital for minor surgery. The letter she had told her she had to be there at 1pm!

Lots of reasons. People not receiving letters on time - they send them too late and with postal strikes they often don't arrive until the date has passed. Why don't they also email or ring/text. Royal Mail is just too unreliable

Other reasons I have experienced myself - the appointments are erroneous or clash with other medical procedures/existing hospitalisation.

I tried to cancel one but there was no instructions on how to do that or any phone number. I did spend around half an hour ringing various depts but eventually gave up as it was too difficult.

You do have a point, OP. But I really don't believe that every single one of these people are just deliberately not turning up. I think there's a massive glitch in the system (as a number of posters have said.)

As quite a few people have said, some people get a letter for an appointment a day or two after the appointment. Some people don't get a letter at all, because the department in question didn't send one, OR they sent to an old address they moved from a couple of years ago. Or sent a text to an old phone number.

We've got a mobile phone that we use as a burner phone now that we haven't actually used as a proper functioning mobile phone number for 2.75 years. (We both got new ones in Spring 2020.) Yet at least three or four different departments have contacted us by phone call or text on this number in the last six months. They HAVE our new numbers and sometimes call them on them, but SOMEtimes it's the old one. The DWP, the tax office, the hospital, and the dentist. Although they've got our new number on the computer, they've got the old one we haven't used since early 2020 written manually on our files. In November, the number died through lack of use. So if someone like the hospital sends a message on it, we won't get it now!!!

I do also know a few people who couldn't make their appointments or procedure, so they did contact someone and leave a message - or they emailed. Or sent a text back to say 'I can't make his procedure.' And then about three or four weeks after they got a rollicking from their GP for not turning up.

So I really do think there's a glitch in the system, but yeah, for sure there are some people that don't turn up. My husband went for a specialist appointment several months ago and there were six people due to go in that morning... Only three turned up. The specialist phoned all six people HERSELF three or four days before to make sure they were still coming. One said they couldn't make it. And the other 5 said they can. So that was 5 that was due. 3 turned up.

The system needs overhauling, with a 'fine' to those who confirm they are coming when asked several days before, who then do not turn up!!! They also drop to the very VERY bottom of the list.

I had one appointment cancelled last year with another one rebooked three months later with no letter,text nothing. Luckily I checked my NHS app. Then I rang to confirm it was cancelled and rebooked.

This year same thing. Was referred in august, randomly checked the app in November to see I had an appointment in a week. No letter,no text,nothing.

I have a procedure next week which was booked over the phone , nothing on the app,no letter and I also need to take some meds to prep for it. Hopefully they will arrive next week so I'm not panicking yet.

Without the NHS app I'd have two DNA 's on my file and would have been discharged back to the care of my GP for not attending despite not being my fault.

This was my first initial thought too!

I've DNAd appointments before. I have MH issues and my brain freezes through overwhelm whenever I have any form of appointment. My GP surgery are really understanding and where I used to get shitty letters from them if I miss a check up I get a phone call in the slot instead and am supported to attend.

Perhaps there needs to be more support for people in my situation? We don't mean to DNA but our medical conditions mean we do DNA, it's a paradox that comes with a major amount of guilt too.

I have also fallen victim to the shitty phone call from a hospital about DNAing a clinic appointment I knew nothing about only to get a letter a few days later dated the day of the appointment with the appointment for that day on it....

They would be able to do this if there was no other option. Email and SMS have been around for 25-30 years. There's really no excuse at this point.

This! I had a row with an nhs secretary at the children's hospital not so long ago as she insisted we DNA 2 appointments when I said how long we had been waiting. One we were not informed of until a week after the appointment and one was cancelled, we found out it had been reinstated from this secretary, but no-one informed us. I would never , ever waste our surgeon's time. I am all too aware how tricky it is to get an appointment in the first place.

And hospital transport does not always turn up.

You know all those times politicians say money can be saved in the NHS by cutting pen pushers? This is the result.

Ours doesn't, it's all done by letter.. And that is part of the problem because everywhere operates completely differently, there should be one consistent way of managing appointments and information

There is also the fact that some people just take the piss when they see something as 'free' because they don't value it

I've had appointment letters arrive a week after the appointment (meaning I've gone to the bottom of "the list" or needed to be re referred) no letter at all just an angry phone call asking where am I a phone call reminding me I had an appointment for my pregnancy AFTER I had the baby

All pre pandemic

Post pandemic it's worse way WAY worse
So I wouldn't be so sure those people knew they had an appointment

@Florenz You are wrong. You would have elderly and disabled people turning up at the GP asking for help. Saying well tough you should be able to is not good enough.
Or CAB would have to offer help to book your hospital appointment.

Waiting list clerk here. Before I book appointments I check the patients records to see if they are in hospital or passed away/moved into a care home etc etc. I obviously can't delve any further than that, if a patient doesn't let their gp know they've moved etc.

If it's a short notice appointment I book by telephone. Patients also get a reminder call.

We still get no shows.

Having worked in the NHS for over 30 years, been a patient for 55 years, and having 2 teenagers who have regular hospital appointments, I am certain that the vast majority of DNAs are NOT people who never got the letter.

Firstly, anyone who has registered a mobile phone number with their GP is likely to get a text reminder of the hospital appointment. I get one the week before, the day before, and on the day. This may not be the case for all hospital trusts, but I reckon it's pretty common.

And secondly, isn't it funny how it's generally the same people who DNA every time? Why is it that some people allegedly never get their appointment letter, however many referrals they have? While other people always get their letter. Strange.... I have patients who will book an appointment with me (I'm a GP) in the morning, and DNA in the afternoon. They'll then call again the following morning, and do the same. Sometimes this will happen several days in a row. And funnily enough, these very same people DNA their hospital appointments too.

@Sarahcoggles Do you never wonder why the same individuals keep DNAing?

I’m surprised at how high the dna rate is for some of you. Mine is around 10% and for many of those it’s our error due to letters being sent out late. We don’t have a text service (been talking about it for at least 10 years) so it’s letters with a few short notice appointments booked over the phone. The biggest problems that aren’t letter/booking errors are dementia (lots of memory clinic patients dna), mental illness and addiction, people overwhelmed and confused by the volume of appointments they’ve had (often newly diagnosed cancer or people with comorbidities so they have something from their respiratory clinic, something from diabetic clinic, something from their oncologist and something gets forgotten about), people are terrified and panic, patient transport being shit, patient not well enough, patient now an inpatient (but nobody tells us), patient inpatient in a different hospital, patient in a hospice, patient dead.
I’ve had an arsey letter about not bringing a child to a hospital I’d never been to and didn’t know anything about when the child had been taken to a different hospital. That was an admin error from a referral from a MIU in a community hospital and not because I couldn’t be arsed.

Oh and the cracker I forgot. I once received a letter on say 1st November 2018 for an appointment on 25th October. I spent ages getting through to apologise and when I did after several.attempts to explain I had only just got the letter, the lady insisted I had not had an appointment on 25th October. I then reread the letter and realised the appointment had been for 25th October 2017. The postmark was 29th October 2018. One had to ask what the chuff goes on in our hospitals.

Have you thought about what it's like to be elderly? Even if you used email etc at work, the skills don't necessarily stay with you.

Exactly!
Maybe you should go to their house and pick them up yourself, in case they don't have transport

Every time I have an appointment sent through it’s for a totally inconvenient time ie during school run or whatever. Then I figure out a way to make it work but will inevitably get an appointment cancellation letter a few days later. Then I’m sent another letter with a new date for a few weeks or months later. And often this happens more than once. Why couldn’t they just have secretaries or whatever you want to call them nowadays, like we used to?

like you say, just pick up the phone and say hello does this time work for you? Yes no great book it!

not an excuse for everyone I’m sure but honestly it’s such a convoluted process it surely has to account for some of the no shows

What is your medical condition?

What support would you need to be able to attend appointments?

I am currently on a waiting list to see a gynaecologist (I have already been waiting a year) due to physical and mental symptoms of endometriosis which is affecting my day to day life.

I would be appalled if the reason I am waiting so long is because someone else knowingly missed their appointment/s and taking up time for people who would not dare purposely DNA.

This is more what I would see as the cause.

My Dad recently missed an appointment because the letter arrived on Monday to notify him of the appointment the previous Saturday, and my Mum was rushed in for surgery yesterday on short notice because some other poor ladies hospital transport didn't turn up.

That's a good point. How many of the people who say over the phone they are going to turn and then DNA were dependent on booking hospital transport? It's notoriously unreliable and, these days, getting harder to book.

It would be good to see some decent quantitative and qualitative research on the whole DNA issue, in terms of causes and effects.