PATIENTS have missed nearly 1 million hospital and surgical appointments across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde since 2011, the Evening Times can reveal.

The figures, obtained using a series of coordinated Freedom of Information requests, show patients have failed to show up to a staggering 901,939 appointments at Glasgow’s hospitals in the last five years.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) said the no-show appointments were of “major concern”, wasting staff resources and depriving other needy people of specialist treatment and advice.

Although NHSGGC was unable to give an exact cost of these missed appointments, staff said each incident puts extra strain on the service and has an impact on waiting times.

Now the health board are trialling reminder services aiming to bring down the number of incidents where people simply don’t turn up.

Last year, around 14% of hospital and dental appointments were missed by patients who did not turn up to their appointments at nine different hospitals in the health board area.

The Western Infirmary reported the highest number of missed appointments in the last five years, with patients not turning up 317,474 times between April 2011 and September this year.

The new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, and the previous Southern General, recorded more than 197,000 no-shows in the last five years.

Since 2011, more than 12,000 surgeries have also not gone ahead due to patients not arriving for their appointment, including 1066 surgeries at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, and 2944 at the Victoria ACH unit.

Gartnavel General Hospital recorded more than 2,000 missed surgeries since 2011, while the Western Infirmary reported only 85.

Last year around 3000 of the 100,000 surgeries scheduled with NHSGGC were missed by patients who did not turn up.

More than 97,000 dental appointments were also not attended by patients, despite not being rearranged or cancelled.

Robin Wright, Director of Health Information and Technology at NHSGGC, said: “Missed outpatient appointments are a major concern for the NHS and it is not only a waste of vital staff resources but also means many other patients are missing specialist treatment and healthcare advice.

“Missed appointments do have a knock-on affect on waiting times.”

Mr Wright said the health service were working to tackle the problem with automated reminder systems, prompting patients to attend or to rearrange their appointments in advance.

Some GP practices in Glasgow already use text reminder services but it is yet to be used in hospitals.

Mr Wright said: “We undertake a range of actions to remind patients to attend including an automated reminder system.

“The system reminds patients of their appointment via an automated voice call which rings the patient up to seven days before their appointment date.

“When the patient answers they are given four options - confirm they are attending, re-arrange the appointment, cancel the appointment completely or speak to an advisor

“We are currently piloting a text reminder service with the Royal Hospital for Children being the first site to trial this service.”

hannah.rodger@eveningtimes.co.uk