Non-attendance

As a courtesy to your fellow patients and clinical staff, please attend your appointment by the allotted time or let us know if you need to cancel your appointment so that it can be released to assist another patient. Clinician appointments are usually allocated 15 minutes. If you are late, you may be asked to rebook your appointment.

Failing to turn up for an appointment and not contacting the surgery to cancel it has an adverse effect on other patients and the smooth running of the surgery. It leads to:

An increase in the waiting time for appointments
Frustration for both staff and patients
A waste of resources
A potential risk to others’ health

In an attempt to try and resolve this, the practice has in place the following policy:

If you fail to attend and appointment, we will write to you to remind you of our policy on missed appointments.
If you repeatedly fail to attend for appointments after you have been reminded of our policy and the impact of missing appointments without cancelling them, you may be removed from the practice list and have to find an alternative GP practice.

A child that is not brought to their appointment is a concern, and not managed under the same policy above. The parent or guardian has a responsibility to bring the child to their healthcare appointments. Cases where children are not brought to their appointments are reviewed by our Safeguarding Lead and further action is taken where necessary.

Missed appointments cost the NHS £1bn last year.

Help us save money by letting us know if you can’t make an appointment as early as possible. Thank you for your co-operation.