A group of practices in Northumberland has claimed that they are losing an entire week of their practice nurses’ time every month due to patients not attending appointments.
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Coquet Medical Group, which runs two GP practices in Northumberland as well as a minor injuries unit and primary care walk-in centre, revealed the statistic after they conducted an analysis of all their appointment data.
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The Group also cited a lack of GPs as another contributor to difficulties booking appointments, and have taken the step of releasing GP appointments on the day, which they say has ‘significantly reduced the “did not attend” rate for GPs’.
In a statement reported by the Northumberland Gazette, they added: ‘We recently examined our nurse appointments and the rate of people not attending. We found that every month we have been losing nearly a whole week of nurse time due to patients failing to attend their nurse appointments.’
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They report that they have invested ‘considerable time and effort in identifying patients likely to develop serious medical problems’, but that with ‘slightly more funding’, they could do more to improve health outcomes for their patients.
