Over 10% of all new outpatient appointments missed: We must do more to protect our NHS

Scottish Conservatives can reveal that over 10% of all new outpatient appointments are missed by patients.

In the quarter ending June 2010, 167,968 of 1,576,359 outpatient appointments were missed, a total of 10.7%.

Nanette Milne MSP, Shadow Minister for Public Health, who uncovered the figures today, said:

"This is a huge loss to the NHS in Scotland, where every penny is precious in protecting frontline services.

"Scottish Conservatives believe that the NHS budget needs to be protected. We have already ensured that £20 million has been saved for the NHS in Scotland as a result of our scrapping Labour's NI tax on jobs - this money must remain in the NHS.

"But all this good work is in danger of being undone when we hear that more than 10% of all new outpatient appointments are missed. These missed appointments cost money and lengthen waiting times for others.

"We need a pro-active approach from the SNP Government and a move towards more sophisticated ways to remind patients with text message and email reminders. In these difficult times caused by Labour's legacy of debt, we cannot afford to throw money away."

Below is the question Nanette Milne MSP asked, and the response she received

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many hospital specialist appointments have been missed in each year since 2007, broken down by NHS board.
(S3W-36686)
Ms Nicola Sturgeon :

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-26533 on 14 September 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliaments' website, the search facility for which can be found at:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Information on the number of patients who did not attend (DNA) a first outpatient appointment at a consultant-led clinic in 2009-10 is as follows.

Prior to the introduction of the New Ways of Defining and Measuring Waiting Times, DNA information was only available for first outpatient appointments from Scottish Morbidity Outpatient Records. DNA information is now being published from the New Ways dataset for both first outpatient appointments and for inpatient and day case treatment. The first published data was for the quarter ending 30 September 2009.

Latest published information from New Ways shows that for the quarter ending June 2010, there were 33,794 missed first outpatient appointments at a consultant-led clinic, a DNA rate of 9.0%. For the same period, there were 2,982 missed appointments for inpatient and day case treatment, a DNA rate of 2.6%.

NHS Board of Treatment           Number of New Outpatient Appointments                Number of DNAs             DNA Rate (%)
Ayrshire and Arran                                          108,542                                                     11,998                         11.1
Borders                                                            32,311                                                      2,112                            6.5
Dumfries and Galloway                                    39,902                                                      1,971                            4.9
Fife                                                                  109,355                                                    10,190                           9.3
Forth Valley                                                      71,088                                                      6,042                            8.5
Grampian                                                        124,974                                                     9,843                            7.9
Greater Glasgow and Clyde                            460,249                                                     62,481                         13.6
Highland                                                         69,218                                                        5,228                           7.6
Lanarkshire                                                    145,397                                                      17,284                         11.9
Lothian                                                          238,245                                                       25,510                         10.7
Orkney                                                            3,519                                                            141                            4.0
Shetland                                                         6,085                                                            367                            6.0
Tayside                                                           155,452                                                      13,982                         9.0
Western Isles                                                 7,615                                                            578                            7.6
Scotland*                                                       1,576,359                                                  167,968                        10.7
Source ISD Scotland, SMR00 (Outpatient attendance)
* Data for the Golden Jubilee National Hospital are not shown separately but are included in the Scotland figures.

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

Back to all posts