Bosses at the National Health Service (NHS) are calling for fines to be bestowed upon patients who book a GP appointment but fail to show up.
This comes after almost 4.5 million slots have been missed by service users this year - costing the already-exhausted NHS in the ball park of £175million, which equates to over £1.4million each day.
The Express reveals that overall, there have been 37,379 missed appointments each day. The scandal comes as sick and frustrated patients complain at being unable to secure appointments, with waits of several weeks common for a non-urgent GP visit.
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Dr Sarah Jarvis, a GP and clinical director, said such cases were “incredibly frustrating” when family doctors are under intense pressure.
She said: “GP appointments are very precious because there aren’t enough of us. If people choose to make an appointment and then not turn up, that’s an appointment that could have gone to somebody else.”
Dr Jarvis said she supported in principle the idea of fining patients a small amount – such as £5 or £10 – for wasting doctors’ time.
She said: “I’ve always been vehemently against the idea of fining people for using the NHS, but I think that’s very different to fining people for abusing the NHS."
“If you have an appointment and you suddenly find at short notice that you can’t make it, everybody has mobile phones. How difficult would it be to send a message or drop the practice a note online?"
“The problem we’ve got is the practicalities. Who’s going to collect the fine? You can’t expect receptionists to do it.”
Professor Karol Sikora, a Daily Express columnist and former director of the World Health Organisation cancer programme, said: “How do we solve the problem?
“Fines for those who fail to attend appointments without fair notice could be considered. We have to try something. Failing to attend a GP appointment without a timely cancellation is selfish and a waste of everybody’s time.
“Millions of people are desperate to see a doctor. By taking up valuable resources you are denying somebody else the opportunity which could potentially save their life. It’s appalling, rude and arrogant behaviour which should be strongly discouraged. If you can’t make the appointment, that’s fine – let the surgery know.”
Dennis Reed, director of over-60s campaign group Silver Voices, suggested it would be more effective to make clear to patients that repeated no-shows will have consequences.
He said: “I have no sympathy at all, given the scarcity of resources at the moment that GPs have to work with, for people who make appointments and don’t turn up without a reasonable excuse. I’m not sure that fining people is the best way forward.
“Some might just accept a fine and continue doing it.
“If this was a persistent problem with a particular patient, I think they should be called into the surgery to explain why this is happening and to justify why they should remain on the register of that practice.”
Some 1,075,661 appointments were skipped in January, 1,076,215 in February, 1,288,983 in March and 1,044,698 in April, figures revealed. This followed a grim period during the height of Covid when many surgeries shut completely and access was denied.
In most cases, patients did not bother to contact surgeries, so appointments could be redeployed. Each appointment costs around £39. The money lost could pay the salaries of more than 2,000 full-time GPs, 8,000 community nurses, or fund 200,000 cataract operations and 50,000 hip replacements.
The number of no-shows is particularly concerning as tens of thousands of patients with suspected cancer symptoms have been unable to get themselves checked by a doctor during the pandemic, sparking a national diagnosis and treatment emergency. Patients are also struggling to secure routine slots because of the deepening GP staffing emergency. Doctors are said to be complaining of daily problems, including a lack of resources and reliable IT systems.
The stresses of not being properly equipped to help the sick and vulnerable has seen many suffer with their own mental health issues, and an alarming number of newly-qualified doctors are quitting the profession as a result.
The statistics come a fortnight after the Daily Express laid bare the deepening crisis in primary care, with thousands of stressed GPs saying patients are being failed because “unsustainable” workloads have left them at a breaking point.
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