75,000 appointments missed at trust which runs New Cross Hospital
Almost 75,000 appointments have been missed at the trust that runs Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital and Cannock Chase Hospital, costing the NHS £7 million.
In 2015, 74,648 bookings were missed by patients who failed to turn up for their appointments.
The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust also runs West Park Hospital in Wolverhampton as well as a number of community and health centres.
The figures relate to between January and December 2015 and the estimated income the Trust 'lost' from these unattended appointments was £7m.
Gwen Nuttall, chief operating officer at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, said: "When a patient fails to turn up for a hospital appointment it is known as a Did Not Attend (DNA).
"DNA's have an enormous impact on the healthcare system in terms of cost and waiting time and the situation across The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is no exception.
"We always encourage our patients to keep to their appointments and try to look at ways in which we can help to reduce the DNA's at the Trust.
"In September last year we introduced a text reminder service where some of our patients were contacted via a text to their mobile phone number to remind them of their appointment.
"Phase one of this project has seen our DNA drop from the 8.6 per cent recorded throughout 2015 to seven per cent since the text reminder service began.
"We are now looking to roll the project out across the Trust and hope to see a further fall in our DNA's which can only be good for our patients and the Trust."
Last month the Express & Star revealed that more than 1,500 people a month have missed an appointment with Dudley's NHS Trust in the past year, new figures show.
Every time a patient fails to turn up to an appointment, it costs the hospital trust an average of around £70 and a total of 18,884 patients have missed outpatient appointments in the past 12 months.
And in February it was revealed that Missed patient appointments at Walsall Manor Hospital have cost the cash-strapped trust more than £12m in three years.
Between the years of 2012/13 and 2014/15 there were have been 131,615 reported missed appointments.
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust has said a new patient administration system, which was implemented in 2014, caused some data to be recorded inaccurately.
But bosses have also urged patients to keep to their appointments and contact the hospital if they cannot attend when scheduled.
