Missed GP appointments across the Black Country and Staffordshire cost NHS £1.3m a month

A total of 43,511 appointments were missed across the region in December, which at £30 an appointment equates to £1.3 million – the equivalent of the annual salary of 57 full-time nurses.

The Royal College of GPs said missed sessions are "a frustrating waste of resources" for GPs and other patients struggling to secure time with their doctor.

In Wolverhampton, patients failed to attend 7,297 face-to-face consultations with doctors and nurses in December, NHS Digital data shows.

A total of 84,433 were booked, meaning one in 12 appointments were missed without patients calling in to cancel or reschedule at a cost of around £218,910.

With appointments lasting 10 minutes on average, GPs and other practice staff wasted 1,361 hours of consulting time that could have been spent looking after sick residents.

In neighbouring Walsall, patients failed to attend 8,163 appointments at a cost of £244,890 and 1,361 hours of consulting time to the local NHS commissioning group.

In December, a total of 101,655 face-to-face consultations were booked with GPs and other practice staff in the Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group. Of them, one in 12 was missed.

Sandwell and West Birmingham CCG reported 16,273 missed appointments in December at a cost of £488,200 – the equivalent to the annual salary of 21 full-time nurses.

One in 11 of the 183,654 booked appointments were missed, meaning 2,712 hours of consulting time was wasted.

Dudley's local NHS Trust lost around £212,300 and 1,180 hours in December after 7,078 appointments were missed.

Cannock Chase and Stafford lost £72,400 and £68,600 respectively as 2,413 and 2,287 appointments were missed. A total of 785 consulting hours were wasted across the two boroughs.

Cancelled appointments are not included in the figures, as surgeries can offer those slots to other patients.

The chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners and Lichfield MP Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard has encouraged patients to keep appointments or cancel them in plenty of time.

She added: "Many patients are waiting far too long for a GP appointment, and we can all do our bit to help."

More than a million patients failed to attend appointments in England in December, racking up estimated costs of more than £30 million.

The British Medical Association said it was vital that appointments were not wasted at a time of intense pressure on the NHS.

The association's GP committee chair, Dr Richard Vautrey said: "We believe that the NHS should make clear to the public that, given current pressures on the health service, patients should make every possible effort to attend or rearrange their appointment to avoid time and money being wasted."