You are concerned about the number of missed hospital appointments

To reduce the number of “no-shows” among outpatients, text messages are sent to those with upcoming hospital appointments.

York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have introduced reminders to encourage attendance and give patients the chance to reschedule their appointment.

As said at Friday’s meeting, poor coastal neighborhoods were identified as areas where people were more likely to be late for appointments.

Members of North Yorkshire Council’s committees in Scarborough and Whitby heard that the reasons why patients do not attend appointments are often “unknown”.

Councilors at the meeting said Scarborough residents who lived in areas with higher levels of poverty seemed to miss more meetings than residents of wealthier neighborhoods.

The trust said the average patient no-show rate on its sites is now 5.4%, and it has recently introduced text reminders.

A spokesman for the trust said: “We appreciate how busy people are and how easy it is to forget an appointment or lose an appointment card.

“With our SMS reminder service, patients not only receive a reminder of their upcoming appointment, but also have the option to cancel or reschedule it if necessary, simply by replying.

“This will help us see more patients faster. It is also a quick and easy way for our patients to manage their appointments.”

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, around 650,000 NHS hospital appointments were missed every month in England in 2021/22.

NHS research has shown that 10-20% of patients from the most deprived communities are most likely to miss their appointment.

Councilor Liz Colling said the foundation had mapped hospital absences by geography and health status, and the results suggested that “our most deprived areas have the highest rates of missed appointments”.

“While the trust is interested from an efficiency point of view, I am really concerned that we have people with health problems who have gone through the necessary difficulties and are waiting for a hospital appointment and then, for reasons unknown to us, they have not kept it,” she said.

Follow BBC Yorkshire further Facebook, Twitter AND Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].

More on this story

Related web links