I cancelled a drs appointment recently. It took me 4 days of calling at 8am (the only time I can contact my GPs) to get through to someone to be able to cancel it (at work and couldn't use phone directly at 8, by quarter past the lines are closed with a message to call back tomorrow). GP system in the UK is awful and seems almost designed to be user unfriendly
I have to book an ordinary appointment 4 weeks in advance. 2 or 3 days before the appointment they send me a text to ask if I need to cancel. I suppose on the basis I'm better or dead, but that's not my point. My point is whether your surgery needs to get its it system up to date to offer this text service. Have a word with them. It would bring the system up to date and save the NHS money.
I once missed a doctors appointment. When I say that I forgot, I lost all recollection of it. The receptionist gave me hell, but the doctor was much more understanding. He asked a few questions, and took a blood test. I got a phone call to go in and the doctor showed me the result - one level was through the roof and he told me that it explained why I had no recollection whatsoever. The irony is that if I hadn't missed that appointment, the problem could have remained undiagnosed for much longer and more difficult (and expensive) to treat. Should I have been fined for being unwell?
A system will never work perfectly as intended for everyone. The best designs maximise gain - in this case, cost savings without compromising health outcomes - for the system overall and try to make sure that edge cases like yours that slip through with undesirable results are not horrible. Basically, yes, you should have paid a tenner for the missed appointment, because it’s a small cost for a huge efficiency gain to the NHS and that’s good for everyone, including yourself.
@@vladx2 But then we come to the reason for my issue. It was medical negligence at the same surgery. (I was not the only person to have received unacceptable care and the doctor involved had to leave). There is the potential for legal redress. And what about cases where there is a transport failure such as a taxi to the doctor's surgery not turning up? An administrative and legal minefield.
@neilpickup if you’re in California a md appointment is like hens teeth . You simply don’t forget because because the chance of getting another within 90 days is rare.
That's a very, very niche issue. It is unfortunate that you would have to incur the (probably recoverable) cost of a fiver but, let's be honest, if it were to inject a massive amount of money into the NHS it's probably worth it. Let's stop allowing the tiny minority to dictate the direction of the majority. Most of Britain aren't suffering from memory loss.
Both of my parents have received multiple hospital appointments for what turned out to be the same thing, NHS system kept churning out letters with different appointment dates. Also turned up to one appointment at the weekend and the whole department was closed. Plenty of patient time being wasted too.
As a retired nurse from general practice 1999-2020, an absurd NO. The reason? Usually those missing appointments were struggling with mental health, or early not yet diagnosed dementia. Other patients struggling financially in poverty areas could be held up through no fault of their own. There were some obviously who did repeatedly miss appointments who didn't have the above problems, so maybe a second hit if they did it twice? I did go in early at 7am to accommodate one patient who still didn't turn up. On the other hand, my daughter has ME/cfs and hasn't the energy to hang on a call waiting for 30mins to either make or cancel appointment.
Things like Patient Access allow you to book or cancel appointments and order repeat prescriptions online. Obviously the very elderly, the severely impaired and the most impoverished won't be able to use the internet but for the majority of people it's a good option. It frees up phone lines for those who can't use the internet.
@@Schiltron To whom are you directing your comment? You should go and have a read of the literature in relation to mental health issues and the impact which many of the myriad of mental health issue have on executive function, before commenting publicly. I would direct you to PubMed to do a simple search, in the hope of educating yourself on matters which you appear to have little experience, professionally or otherwise. In relation to extremely small sample sizes, I suggest that you add the search term "meta". That should satisfy your desire for a large sample. Have a good day Sir.
I doubt £5 for a GPs appointment would be a nominal amount to the poorest. Especially the elderly who may have many appointments for multiple medical conditions
The missed appointment thing misses out that while it's quite hard to get snagged appointment, it's virtually impossible to call and let your GP or clinic know that you can't make it.
A big NO to fining people for missing appointments. Our postal service is awful and takes on average 3 to 4 weeks for a letter to come through, sometimes longer. The amount of documents we've had turn up past their due date or after the appointment date is shocking. If fines were introduced, I'd just stop going to the doctors altogether, as I could not afford to pay them.
@@amandag5072 Yes, same thing has been happening in my area. Since covid, they’ve never had enough staff to deliver to all areas daily. It gets stacked up and delivered in a batch every few weeks. Lots of people on local Facebook page complaining about missing important hospital appointments as a result.
It's not "our" postal system. Check the dates of dictation, dispatch and arrival. It's the false economy decision by your NHS Trust to brigade responses into economic quantities and send them out in such quantities, however late that is.
If you google appointments you will discover that in the 12 months up to October 2023 the NHS in UK provided 358,000,000 appointments. Clearly some will be missed. You will also discover that people who tend to miss appointment are poor people. I used to be a mental health nurse and I understand how difficult it can be for a person struggling with finances to get to appointments. Clearly the solution is to get people out of poverty not to harass those who are in it. Why do middle class solutions to problems always be lets punish the poor.
This all assumes that Doctors appointments are well managed. What happens when the reason for the missed appoinment is that one was never made, or appointment letters are sent after the appoinment was supposed to happen, or having informed the practice that you are abroad and not available they still setup appoinments. All of these have happend to our family in the last year.
Also f**kinglutely. Wes Streeting is right about needing to sort out waste in the NHS first. My experience of hospital appointment setting entails so much of what commercial executives call "Failure Demand" (which is where the pressure on phone and email responses is generated by misunderstanding and unnecessary correction calls) that it can never be seen as a customer/patient responsibility.
Yes this. Even simple things aren't easy. I had a GP once tell me to make an appointment to see them again in two weeks. It was there idea and that's what they wanted me to do. When I went to reception they responded as if I'd asked for my bodyweight in gold. After some debate and me saying the doctor told me this is what I have to do they relented. Next time there was a similar suggestion made the GP booked it in their diary themselves.
Years ago I missed a hospital appointment because I got the letter the day after the appointment. They tried to blame the post office until I pointed out there was a delay of 3 weeks between the date on the letter and the franking of the envelope. I used to make an annual clinic appointment from one year to the next, then that was stopped. Now, you have no idea when you’re going to be called and often you’re only given a week’s notice. If you’re away on holiday or such, then that’s another one missed. Yes, it’s easier now if you have a smart phone. Not everyone does.
I had an almost identical incident, also many years ago. I was waiting for a date for an operation and the letter giving me the date arrived the day before. Looking at the date on the letter and the date the letter was franked, it looked like it had been sitting in someone's outbox for about 2-3 weeks. I was very lucky to have an understanding employer as I had to go into work and ask for several days medical leave starting "tomorrow".
My surgery has twice accused me of missing appointments when no appointment was made. My certainty is clear as I get 2 appointments per year on average and the last 3 years with zero. Also doctors are always and without exception way behind, leaving us with long waits for our appointment. Hence missing an appointment is of zero consequence to GPs. Specialists are another issue.
My elderly mum had a hospital appointment last week. It was a rescheduling of an appointment that was cancelled months ago. I received a phone call 30 minutes before the appointment telling me it was cancelled again. Can I fine the doctor?
My sister lives in France. You pay €13 when you book a doctor's appointment. If you attend you get €12 back. I have a friend who works at a large GP practice. He says that if everyone actually turned up they'd need another GP. French idea seems good to me.
This is the only suggestion I've seen that makes proper sense. I've always wondered why our governments don't look abroad more and pick the best policies to implement in the UK.
@@mikey3666 it doesn't actually have to be paid in advance, just take their credit card details and charge if they don't show up like most restaurants do for reservations. It has to be a sufficient disincentive that people feel compelled to either show up or cancel with notice
No it doesn't work like that. You only pay when you go. Have lived here fur 10 years. Costs about 27 euros of which you tend to get 25 back. Public insurance covers most of that and private insurance about 8 euros
@@stephanguitar9778Clearly you never worked in healthcare. No, it is not helpful for you to miss your appointment genius. How do you think we ran late in the first place?
@@adtastic1533 You ran late on account of each patient taking a bit longer to process than the allocated appointment. Every appointment I have had in the 50 years I can remember had me waiting at least 15 minutes, so on that basis, the odd person that does not turn up, does everyone a favour. If one person is not there, they call the next one in. As you well know.
The NHS set appointments - without consultation, tell you they are set - with no patient input on availability AT ALL. They don’t always tell you about set appointments, then complain it was missed…!!
About a month ago I had my referral to a hospital cancelled because I "missed" 2 appointments. Appointments I was never told I had. No text, no phone call, no letter. The only time they sent me anything was letting me know the referral was cancelled. I dont know what went wrong but if I got billed for their mistakes it would have turned a stressful situation on my end of trying to figure out what happened and fix it into an absolute nightmare. I realise the NHS is broken (thanks austerity) and reform is necessary but that strategy isn't going to help, especially if you listen to some of the reasons other people put in the comments.
Recently had a hospital appointment scheduled for me whilst I was on holiday, very short notice, notified via app, no telephone number for cancellations and everytime I hit the link that told me it would take me to that information, the app crashed. So no, I don’t think people should be fined for missing appointments until they can deliver a functioning appointments service.
Code switching = adapting language to circumstances. Imagine sitting at a cafe with a friend, and their phone rings. Very soon you'll hear if it's your friend's spouse, boss or mother calling. It's more than an accent.
We need to recognise that the NHS is not currently fit for purpose. Certainly a rethink on primary care is needed - it’s now largely a gate keeping/administrative function. It’s no longer fulfilling its original purpose and yet there’s a reluctance to admit it’s not working.
So true. Gatekeeping and admin. That's all GP's do. Glorified pub bouncers and admin workers. If it doesn't involve paracetamol and googling stuff then they are out of their depth. It's only when you have got past primary care that you can access any decent health care.
How's the inequality, social mobility and poverty indices compared to the UK? A country that cares for its people compared with one that has impoverished them over several decades (look at the working poverty figure for when Campbell was in power) is likely the key difference in outcomes.
@@clivedarwell5732 inequality and social mobility is on another (better) level to the UK. However the big difference is the sense of social responsibility across society here. People would make a point of cancelling or rearranging their appointment rather than just not showing up.
I'm an English teacher, some people, especially musical people and people who are good at learning foreign languages, subconsciously copy the accents of people around them. It's often not an affectation and deliberate but a sign of good language skills and they're not aware they're doing it. Is Rory good at learning foreign languages or musical?
Oh god, that’s me. It’s why my accent is all over the place due to living in a shared house of 8 people and all of us being from different regions/ countries within the UK. I’m from the North East but have lived all over the country. I feel like Ron Perlman’s character in The Name of the Rose, Salvatore who speaks several languages in each sentence: there’s the query ‘what language is he speaking?’ To which Sean Connery’s character, William of Baskerville, responds ‘All of them and none at all.’ I pick up accents so easily I sound like I’m taking the piss.
Alistair’s answer about polling showing Kamala Harris ahead while betting odds show Trump ahead completely ignored the obvious point of the Electoral College. It’s entirely possible for Kamala Harris to win the popular vote while Donald Trump wins the election, and in fact that has happened several times, most recently in 2016. So it’s completely plausible (not my own prediction) that the polls are correct and most people support Kamala, while the betting odds are also correct that Trump will win the election.
It’s almost impossible to get through to cancel an appointment just like it’s almost impossible to get through to get an appointment in the first place.
It's very easy to go down the path of "missing an appointment is very rude we should punish people for it" but that avoids looking at the actual root causes behind people missing appointments. I find it highly unlikely that the root causes are a lack of care about having an appointment. I think things like work and other life commitments, the broken transport system, etc are much more likely to be the behind the problem. Maybe actually study the problem before prescribing for it.
NO. The kind of people who miss appointments are ill or poor, the kind of people who can pay are the rich and managers... the kind of people that force employees to work longer so that they then miss their meeting.
I live in Norway and you don't turn up for a hospital appointment it costs over 100 pounds ,the appointment doesn' t cost that much , even denist, foot clinics and doctors do the same . You have 24 hours to cancel.
Physiotherapist recently told me that many of their no-shows dont get cancelled because its elderly folk who have been unexpectedly taken into hospital and the IT systems cannot identify and notify appointments they wont be able to attend.
No! I suspect most people who miss appointments are struggling with other issues and a fine will neither deter or help. It’s also almost impossible to book or cancel an appointment - I needed to cancel a hospital appointment and it took hours to get through to someone. I also doubt it’s really an issue - a missed appointment in reality just provides slack to the system that it needs! Yes somebody hasn’t got one - but fix those issues first. From a systems thinking perspective it’s not the answer or cause - but a nice simple sound bite
@@ChristianMilesOnLine part of the reason they don’t have enough time is because they have to assume every patient will turn up. If we knew only 6 out of 8 patients were actually going to turn up then there would be more time for the other patients. We can’t retrospectively give that time back to the previously patients. Sounds like you’re disgruntled with the system, yet oppose to something that will help
@@Alex-yv4vr That would only be true if the last 2 didn’t turn up - the statistical probability is for a spread of non attendance. Theres better answers - and simple answered are rarely the correct answers! Why do people not turn up? Will a fine really deter? How will fines be collected? Will a fine push people who are struggling into yet more poverty? Will it cause more suffering for those who are struggling? Will it deter people who need to be there?
@@ChristianMilesOnLine patients are booked into time slots. Even if the first two patients didn’t turn up. That time can’t then be spread out amongst the others, because they won’t all turn up appropriately early. I’m not sure why your so oppose to even admitting this is a problem. There might be other problems, and you might disagree with fining people for no shows, I can get on board with both of those perspectives. But saying this isn’t a problem at all, saying it’s an “excuse” from doctors and talking about the “statistical spread of possibility” are all wrong, you sound like a some partisan supporter that will refuse to acknowledge anything regardless of how obvious it is. People not showing up to appointments harms the nhs, just accept that simple point.
Do you how many times I've had an appointment and I'm still waiting 30 to 45 past my appointment time and still waiting to be seen. Do I get paid a fine if I'm still waiting after waiting and waiting and waiting.
As others have said, the people who miss most appointments are often struggling with multiple disadvantages like poor mental health, poor transport (especially if they are disabled and are refused access to buses/trains/taxis which happens ALL the time), poverty and so on. Charging for missed appointments would just create another barrier to the NHS for those people, who are already blocked by the sheer difficulty getting through to many departments, poorly accessible communications (if you can't phone e.g. you're deaf, you're stuffed). There's also issues with some employers refusing to give people time off and bullying workers who then may not be able to get through to cancel in time. On the other side of the coin, it's maddening to turn up for an appointment on time and then be left waiting for hours and hours with no clear information about why you're waiting. Many medical depts will refuse to see you if you're 10-15 mins late, but will routinely see you 1-2 hours late. Even if there are reasons, I can see why that isn't fair and improvements need to be made on all sides. Hospitals also have to answer for how confusing their letters are "your appointment/procedure is at X date and Y time" and don't always say WHICH hospital base or department it is with. I have sometimes had to contact a hospital to ask "which dept? who am I seeing" cos I have multiple ongoing departments in one hospital and the letters are so crappy and confusing. I currently have an outstanding query with one hospital about whether one appt is phone or in person (if phone, they're in deep trouble as I have a live complaint about them sending me a deaf person phone appointments). How would you enforce payment, denial of healthcare till paid? That's dangerous as those people would just become emergency cases and much iller, or already don't feel included and understood and will become more excluded. It's just not worth it. Improve the NHS admin and make things more consistency of care, better community and GP care, deal with poverty and employment rights and the background reasons people miss appointments.
A very uncharitable and uncosmopolitan question to Rory. Shifting accents are very normal, and almost entirely unconscious, for people who have lived and worked in a variety of countries. As a leftist, I am often disappointed in how left-wing cynicism can shade into mild bigotry.
On the NHS appointment fine question. Sometimes the NHS make mistakes or make things unclear that leads to missed appointments. My grandmother missed an appointment because the hospital wrote to her giving her a date and time, then wrote to her a few days later with a different date and time. She misunderstood and thought the appointment had been changed, but actually it was two separate appointments. You could say that it was her fault for assuming, but if they really want appointments to not be missed, they should make it obvious it's two separate appointments.
To add to all of these other thoughtful comments on charging for missed appointments: it is the most vulnerable who are most likely to struggle with travel arrangements to appointments. Penalising people who either cannot afford to attend on the day (because taxi fares have proven too much), or who are let down by public transport that they have no control over, seems unfair. You would also be charging people who are seriously unwell and subsequently miss appointments because they're not able to call in ahead of time. And lastly, you would be charging a huge number of patients who do not have the current mental capacity to deal with appointments and function to a "good" level in daily life; there is a mental health crisis ongoing, and with phone lines abandoned/unmanned in a lot of struggling nhs departments the likelihood mentally ill people will be able to rebook "properly" without being penalised by charges is high. Up front charges always hit the people struggling the most in society, while doing nothing to deter people who are less sick and/or financially stable to respect NHS resources.
I very rarely go to the GP because having to call at 8am on the dot and go through unfriendly triage is too stressful. So I went in person and spoke to the receptionist. I always put the appointment in my phone calendar and when she said the date I repeated it back to her. I then got a nasty letter saying that I had missed my appointment and therefore I was on notice with them and may not receive the care or support in the future due to my negligence. So then I had to go and show text messages where I had told my partner the date, emails to my work booking time off, and the appointment in my calendar. She had put the date in wrong! They begrudgingly removed the notice from my profile that I was a troublesome patient. I haven't been back since because I'm neurodivergent and the anxiety I feel at going back or going through that process is pretty extreme. I probably have cervical cancer but it's just too stressful and difficult.
Carry a walking stick when you go to the GP. As if by magic a stick makes people care about your wellbeing. It even makes motorists allow you to cross the road. It's very strange but a stick unlocks humans compassion where they otherwise wouldn't care if you live or die.
I got a phone call two days ago (10th Sept) from the NHS that cancelled an appointment for the 13th September. I replied I had no appointment that day - but did have one on the 28th. They said yes we can see there is one for the 28th, have you not been informed of the appointment on the 13th. I said no, no text and no e-mail. Suppose there were fines for missed appointments, would I have been fined for an appointment I never knew about on the 13th ? Can you imagine the hassle of trying to disprove the fine ? Real life is messy and 'simple' solutions often are not. The NHS is struggling (not really their fault) and they can get things wrong too. Should they pay a fine for not informing me (the answer is again, no).
Charging for appointments? Absolutely NO. If missed appointments are such a regular certainty, WHY doesn't every doctors surgery have while-you-wait or 'walk-in' services to fill those gaps? 120 million missed appointments is 120 million people they could have seen without an appointment. Those who missed their appointments probably have memory and mental health problems, instead of punishing them for something they can't help, why not simply open their missed appointments up for others who find it difficult to plan and remember what they're doing in the two weeks time it takes to even get an appointment these days??
I moved from England to Scotland a couple of years ago. I had yearly audiology appointments. Prior to moving I informed my GP and the relevant department at the hospital that I was moving. 10 months later an avalanche of appointment letters, cancelled appointment letters and rescheduled appointment letters fell through my letterbox over a number of months. I called the hospital department to update my information and on the third occasion it worked. Over that period I’d have racked up six separate ‘missed’ appointments. Should I have been fined?
Speaking from New Zealand, fines for missed appointments don't work. People who do not turn u are leading chaotic lives, with little resources such as no phone, little money for transport etc. I have worked in the NHS and NZ health service for many years and it has alway been like this.
Most people try desperately to make the appointment time. I live twenty minutes away from the hospital but I give myself one hour twenty to get there because the traffic can sometimes be so bad. The appointment is never usually on time so I could be waiting for at least two hours. The people I talk to do the same.
The NHS must have a complete overhaul. Back in 1947 nobody could guess how medicine would develop and how much everything would cost ( in many ways the NHS has shot itself in the foot by prolonging life span ! ) . There is huge abuse from the public and also staff , and I write as an insider . People want it both ways - great service for no cost . We need a new system, such as the health and social services in Scandinavia. They pay higher taxes and so must we, or bring in an insurance system.
I have a response to missed appointments: a month ago I was kept waiting an hour and a half for a phone call at home and when the call came through he wanted to know from me if I knew why he had been asked to call me! I didn’t but reminded him of two outstanding test results. Prior to that the GP has kept me waiting an hour for a home phone call. The last incident was a week later when a cardio consultant had booked a phone call at 12.50. At 12.50 I should be on my way to the pool as swimming is the only exercise left to me after NHS negligence caused me to contract a rare brain disease and now daily exercise is a requirement to my mobility. After 15 minutes of waiting by the phone I decided to go swimming. In other words putting my needs above NHS. It’s selfish to keep me in the house in the middle of the day whilst the doctor obviously decides he can take as long as he wants because I’m not outside in the waiting room. And regardless of circumstance I become a statistic who costs the NHS money.
Very interesting to me about Egypt supporting Somalia. I was in Mogadishu in June-August 1992 (Just before the US went in) working for the ICRC. At that time there were no foreign embassies there other than the Egyptians who maintained full diplomatic services.
It would be nice if I could get an appointment. I have to phone my doctors at 8am and hope my doctor will see me, the phone lines at 8am are jammed. If I have a day off I’m self employed so I don’t get paid, long story short i haven’t been the doctors in years, it’s past a joke, gp’s are failing us.
Re missed appointments, given the state of royal mail letter delivery there is a none zero risk that appointments are missed as the letter that notifies you of the appointment hasn't arrived.
Why don't we just charge a small fee for initial GP appointments that could be waived if a person is on benefits, has a low income, or for any follow-up appointments related to the same issue? I'm talking like £10 or less......most advanced countries do charge for doctor appointments. This would solve the missed appointment issue, and also help the NHS's finances, at least at the primary care level.
What is the compensation if the NHS delay or miss your appointment? In my country you pay a small fee per appointment and get 12 months of free appointments after you spent X, I think it is less than GBP 200 in a 12 months period (which is offered on credit, paying over 6 or 12 months etc). It works fine and appontments still have to be agreed, you can not just turn up insist on being X-rayed etc.
As someone who often doesn’t get letter prior to appt or as I only know how I am day to day even if one is able to continually call hospitals and clinics and you get through and that’s recorded it is counted as missed even if you cancel on day. If you use hospital transport even more complex. If you’re going to fine people, presumably discriminatory against disabled people and older adults I would have thought.
It would be interesting for Alastair to recollect the challenges of the IT drive for NHS in the 2000. There were a lot of challenges. It looks we are back there again. I thought the electronic record had been sorted out for instance although they made a real mess of it. I think the NHS needs help but it is the last one to be able to do it.For instance, why is self service appointment so difficult? I should be able on my mobile book an appointment and receive a reminder by sms. If I am technologically challenged then ask the local pharmacy for help. The practice can then just do triage and resolve conflicts. What I find fascinating is after covid all the electronic advancements made at that time have not progressed. For instance how many people use apple health or equivalent on their mobiles. Cannot they make it simpler to collect the information with the user permission?
In reality, its first in first serve, so if you don't turn up, the next one shuffles along. If half the patiens don't turn up then the NHS would work much better. Its a good thing. I was bang on the correct time one, I still had to wait.
My GP surgery has patient access, but you can't book appointments through it, it useful for cancelling and ordering repeat meds. So, there are no pre-bookable appointments, yet on their FB page each month they send out a post saying "200+ DNA's", How can they have that many Did Not Attendees if they can't pre-book to miss it? But as for the fines for missing appointments? I'd say yes.
I absolutely think people should be fined for missing their appointment. Another way to do it is to take a refundable deposit of £10 for an appointment and if they turn up to their appointment they get their deposit back. If not, they don’t
Two things on fines for missing GP appointments. Firstly, this will absolute punish people who already struggling financially and suffering from mental issues - people who it is *very* important can go and see a doctor. I suspect many would avoid booking for fear of fines. This could well end up costing the NHS a lot of money through the higher cost of worsening conditions. Secondly, I don't believe it actually costs much money at all. Why? Because every GP I've ever visited in the UK is running behind on all their appointments, they already don't have enough time to see people, with the extra slack allowed by missed appointments so this theoretical time "wasted" doesn't exist. This is not true of scans, etc. where equipment is tied up but that seems to be less of a problem, anyway, I think.
I have to pay 60 euro per GP visit therefore I only book an appointment when absolutely necessary n wouldn't dream of missing it. Visits to A n E cost 100 euro unless you have a drs letter. This is in Republic of Ireland.
Hello. Request - It works really help if you’re podcast episodes on RU-vid and other formats shared the same name to avoid confusion for those who follow the show over multiple formats. That’s.
Never mind the losing candidate who was able to go to Spain. My sympathies are with the party workers and those who were brave enough to vote for the opposition.
Rory is only partly correct about the 'Electoral College' vote from each state. Most states electors vote one way or the other as a block, but Nebraska and Maine does not. However, since they are not swing stares as such, it doesn't really matters that much, but in certain circumstances, it could!
I would appreciate not being innundated by text message reminders when I have a medical appointment. Being on the mature side, I attend appointments as planned and have no need of 5 repeated reminder texts.People that miss appointments are usually sick.[retired nurse}
@FireflyOnTheMoon Perhaps communication could be improved all round.If working people cannot cancel appointments dus to the system not being set up to cancel, perhaps a better system could be put in place? EG First text sent two days before. It not answered, another text the day before and if there is still no confirmation of attendance, cancelled. Then, someone could be invited in to take the appointment from a standby list.
I remember hearing about a study years ago about a daycare centre in Israel. This centre implemented a fee for the late pickup of the children by parents, and this actually increased the rate of late pickups. So, I don't know if a nominal fee would actually decrease the rate of no show appointments.
We can't get doctors appointments! ....Let alone a dentist, our health support has been depleted over the last 14 years and especially since the lock down, all the G.P.s stopped seeing people, it's as though the lock down still exists.
Our GP went from an appointment system to a non-appointment system first-come-first-in before she retired. It made a huge difference and stopped the whole missed appointment problem. Why can't appointments be charged a nominal fee, non-refundable and then allow people to walk-in and wait without charging them. That way, any missed appointments will be filled in by walk-ins.
Our GP ran such a system until a few years ago. A lot of people in the waiting room complained about having to wait and now we have an appointment system where if one can get an appointment the wait is usually no more than 15-20 minutes. Interestingly, the complaining uas usually from people who were well dressed and looked smart as well as the older patients. The ordinary youngsters seem to be the most flexible and accepting of reality.
@@theolddog5129 whatever system you have there will be complaints and certain days and times are bound to be worse than others. So wouldn’t a hybrid of the two systems work better?
The "posh accent", in deeply class riden England, is mere code for "I'm faking it" to a level where the Hanoverian House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Windsors might adopt me as a long lost cousin.
NHS: Missing appointments is wasting ressources - and it's the mistake of that person missing the appointment. If the NHS is lacking ressources they need to be used wisely, not wasted. If you cannot make it and have to miss the appointment you gotta call / email and cancel it beforehand. We are talking grown up people, aren't we? Are we? A small fee for a missed appointment is a good idea methinks. A little bit of accountability can go a long way. Conversely, an entitlement attitude - everything for free, doesn not need to cancel, no accountability - does the opposite. Disclaimer: I'm not living in the UK, but this is a common sense principle (accountability) and live's lessons generally apply worldwide.
There's an existing problem regarding visually impaired people. I live near a blind person who was sent an unasked for appointment at a hospital on the other side of London. By the time he got someone to read his pile of mail (a lot of which was junk mail) the appointment had been and gone. The NHS send out inaccessible letters to people they know to be blind, despite having a record of their phone nunbers. From a personal point of view, contacting my GP, whether to make or cancel an appointment, requires careful planning, long fruitless waiting on the phone and blood-pressure raising frustration. I don't blame my local surgery, I blame the previous government.
The Australian Senate setup is so very different from the way upper houses are setup. The Aussie system is designed to protect the states with smaller populations from being dominated in the parliament by the states with much larger populations. However the process of achieving this is by having equal numbers of senators from each state and each state gets say 10 senators (this number has varied over time). So every 3 years 5 senators are up for election/re-election, so it’s not winner-takes-all, which is what occurs in the US. The Aussie system therefore allows minor parties to be elected making our Senate much more representative and much more dynamic legislature.
What if you had to make a deposit for each appointment? £5-10 for booking an appointment, but you get it back if you're on time. A similar thing to how you get a tiny amount of money in Germany for recycling a bottle at a supermarket but the drinks cost slightly more. Sunk cost fallacy but in a way that helps society!
