Around 500 GP appointments missed every day in Sheffield - costing the NHS more than £5 million

150,000 GP appointments were missed in Sheffield last year, new figures have revealed.

NHS Digital data shows that last year an estimated 180,964 appointments were missed without enough notice to invite other patients in the Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group area – an average of 496 per day.

This includes appointments with nurses, therapists and other practice staff, as well as doctors.

A missed GP appointment costs around £30, according to NHS England, meaning the NHS Sheffield CCG could have lost out on around £5.4 million through patient no-shows last year.

This cost, on top of the disruption for staff and other patients, would pay for the average annual salary of 93 full-time GPs or 5,429 drug treatment courses for Alzheimer’s.

While one in every 19 appointments booked at CCG-monitored GP practices in Sheffield were missed last year, a further 7 per cent were listed as having an unknown outcome – where there was no log of whether the patient did or did not attend.

The Royal College of GPs says missed appointments are ‘frustrating’ for doctors but said charging for them was not the answer.

Dr Anthony Gore, Sheffield GP and clinical director for Care Outside of Hospital at NHS Sheffield CCG said: “We share the Royal College of GPs concern about missed appointments and have worked on various initiatives in Sheffield to raise awareness of the issue, such as the city-wide DNA (did not attend) Man campaign.

“‘DNA Man’ is a superhero that aims to raise awareness of the problem of missed appointments, and encourages patients to cancel if they can’t attend.

“Most practices offer a range of different ways to cancel an appointment, for example over the phone, online, or via an answering machine so we would encourage patients to let their practice know if they can’t make it.

“A missed appointment means another patient misses out on vital care, and it increases demand and pressure on already-stretched local practices.

“Cancelling if you know you can’t attend is a really easy way for us all to help our local NHS.”