OVER 18,200 outpatient appointments were wasted in the Western Trust last year due to patients not turning up for their appointment, costing the local health service around £4 million.
From April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025 the total number of patients who did not attend their Consultant outpatient appointment, or failed to give staff sufficient notice to make the appointments available to other patients, in our hospitals across the Western Trust area was 18,206.
Each missed appointment costs £220, according to the Trust, which has calculated the cost over the period in question equated to £4 million lost to our health budget.
To help reduce non-attendance, the Trust has in place a system for booking outpatient appointments, where patients are given a choice of dates and times and they can select one that best suits them.
Patients attending outpatient appointments across the Western Trust area receive a SMS text to their mobile phone or an automated voicecall to their landline, reminding them of their outpatient appointment three days prior to their appointment.
Paul Doherty, assistant director of surgery, paediatrics and women’s health said, “we understand that there are many genuine reasons why people are not able to make an appointment however, as these figures show every missed appointment is a lost opportunity for someone else to be seen.
“We are asking for the public’s cooperation in reducing non-attendance for hospital outpatient appointments so that valuable resources and staff time is not wasted, as this will have a significant impact on already overstretched health service.”
Paul asked that, where possible, patients with an appointment would let the hospital know if they would not be able to attend and to do this at the earliest opportunity and at least 24 hours beforehand.
Save Our Acute Services secretary, Helen Hamil,l said that there is a large amount of people who cant get to appointments who ask for appointments to be moved to local appointments and therefore wont be facilitated.
“We have personal experiences inside the committee, people who have been phoning and looking for their appointments and they have never been sent them on paper and the appointments have passed, so there are issues in the booking system,” stated Ms Hamill.
“There is no local booking system but there are certain issue which we are being constantly made aware of.
“It is also very important if somebody cant make an appointment that they phone in advance to let the Western Trust know.”