GP practices in Sheffield have launched a campaign to try and reduce the number of missed appointments at city surgeries.
A survey conducted by practices within the Central GP Consortium found hundreds of people each week are failing to turn up for appointments with doctors, nurses and other health care staff.
During just one week of the survey, there were a staggering 678 missed appointments recorded in 18 of the Consortium’s 26 practices.
That’s a minimum of 113 hours of surgery time wasted because people did not contact their practice to cancel or rearrange.
And, that is forcing other patients to wait longer for appointments, diagnosis and treatment.