Dudley patient no-shows cost NHS £1.5m
Patients failed to turn up to more than 14,000 appointments at Dudley's hospitals in just six months - costing the NHS £1.5million.
Hundreds of hours of clinic time was lost due to people missing their out-patient appointments between January and June this year.
Paula Clark, chief executive of The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, the Guest Outpatient Centre in Dudley and Corbett Outpatient Centre in Stourbridge, said a total of 14,817 sessions were missed.
She is now urging patients to warn hospital staff if they can't make it so someone else can have the slot.
Every time a patient fails to show, it costs the hospital trust an average of around £70. This includes the staffing resource wasted and the cost of additional letters and time taken to reschedule missed slots.
Ms Clark said: "When a patient doesn't attend on the day, it's too late to offer their slot to somebody else. If patients can't attend their appointment, it's really important that they let us know so we can reschedule for another time and offer the appointment to somebody else who needs it.
"To help reduce the number of DNAs (did not attends) we have introduced a text message reminder service which reminds patients a few days before they are due to have an appointment."
Between January 1 and December 31, 2014, a total of 40,719 appointments were missed by patients.
The free text reminders contain the date and time of the appointment as well as the location and name of the clinician the patient is due to see.
The hospital trust has previously posted reminder messages on its website, urging people to contact staff if they are unable to attend.
In July health secretary Jeremy Hunt said missed GP appointments cost the taxpayer £162m and missed hospital appointments cost £750m.
It's estimated 6.9million slots go to waste because people do not turn up.
He said patients who miss appointments should be told how much they have cost the NHS.
Mr Hunt said he planned to display the cost of prescription medicines on packets in a bid to reduce medicine waste.
The bill at Dudley Group comes as bosses work to balance the books in the wake of Government funding cuts.
Bosses have been reviewing the positions of temporary staff, those on fixed-term contracts, and bank and agency workers.
They have also been looking at reducing overtime and recruitment to non-clinical vacancies to claw back costs.
