Here's how many people fail to turn up for hospital appointments in Lancashire - and the staggering cost
Almost three quarters of a million hospital appointments were missed at three Lancashire NHS trusts in the space of five years, new figures show.
It is estimated that the collective cost of the 722,000 so-called ‘did not attends’ (DNAs) - instances where patients failed to turn up for clinics and procedures for which they had been booked in - topped £115m.
The tally of wasted appointment slots and the associated bill will be higher still across the county as a whole, since the data - published by healthcare communications specialist Esendex - covers only three of the five hospital trusts based wholly or partly in Lancashire.
The firm compiled a table of the top 50 NHS secondary care organisations with the most missed appointments between 2019 and 2023.
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Blackburn Hospital and Burnley General, had 257,029 no-shows over the period, at a cost of £41.1m - putting it at number 33 of the England-wide list.
There were 247,486 DNAs at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which operates the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble hospitals, costing the organisation £39.6m and placing it 38th nationally.
Meanwhile, University Hospitals Of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, whose facilities include the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Furness General Hospital, saw 217,749 miss their appointments, racking up a bill for the public purse of £34.8m - the 46th-highest nationwide.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust fell outside the top 50 and so their data was not published.
According to the NHS, each missed appointment costs £160.
Commenting on the findings, Chris Gorman, Head of Professional Services at Esendex, said:
“Missed healthcare appointments are hugely frustrating for everyone in healthcare - not least for organisations like the NHS which has to shoulder the financial and administrative burden of no-shows.
“There are a huge number of reasons which might explain why someone misses a healthcare appointment, whether that’s difficulty in taking time off work, being unable to arrange care at the time of the appointment, or transport challenges that prevent people from getting there.
“Perhaps the most frustrating factor is when patients are unaware of a scheduled appointment, have the wrong information, or simply forget about it. While many healthcare providers rely on letters or emails to update patients about their appointments, these can easily be missed, lost or left unread, so it’s clear providers need to find new ways to reduce no-shows.
“With data showing that most people read a text message within the first three minutes of receiving it, SMS solutions have a huge potential to drive down the number of missed appointments across the NHS. Rich messaging also enables providers to support two-way conversations on devices most of us carry with us at all times, making it a convenient, cost-effective and reliable method of contact.”