‘Many times they didn’t receive the letter in time, or they forgot about the appointment, or they were unwell and couldn’t get through to cancel appointments.’ The vast majority of those are not because people have deliberately not bothered to turn up. She said: ‘I’ve worked in many a clinic where people haven’t turned up. The minister, who has worked as an NHS nurse, said they ‘recognise that there’s a multitude of reasons why people miss appointments’.
However, she said the Government’s current focus is to use ‘digital transformation’ to make it ‘as easy as possible’ for patients to cancel appointments or to keep updated with their appointment date to avoid forgetting. Ms Caulfield, who serves as the parliamentary under-secretary of state for mental health and women’s health strategy, said missed appointments ‘cost the NHS a huge amount of money both in primary care with GPs but also in secondary in hospitals and for procedures’. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak first announced plans to introduce a £10 fine as part of his first leadership bid last summer, but he shelved the plans in October saying it was not the right time to take the policy forward. Speaking to ITV yesterday, junior minister Maria Caulfield said that while the policy is not ‘on the table right now’, the Government is ‘not ruling it out for the future’. Plans to charge patients for missed GP and hospital appointments could be back on the agenda in the next Conservative manifesto, according to a health minister.
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