A RECENT survey carried out by NHS Thurrock Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) goes some way to explaining why it’s sometimes so difficult to get a GP appointment in Thurrock.
In the month of March alone there were more than 2,700 missed GP appointments across the 33 GP practices in Thurrock, which means that in one year, an estimated 32,400 appointments would have been wasted.
The missed appointment, commonly called DNAs (Did Not Attend) is logged by the GP surgery when the patient does not turn up for the appointment and does not contact the surgery in advance to cancel/change appointment.
Russell Vine, Practice Manager at Hassengate Medical Centre in Stanford-Le-Hope, said: "We lose so much time that we could spend with patients, if only DNA patients cancelled the appointments they had booked promptly once they know they no longer need it!
Last month, March, my practice alone recorded 234 DNAs, this equates to 39 hours of a GP’s time that has now been wasted.”
The survey has highlighted quite an important drain on NHS resources. Recent engagement surveys by Thurrock CCG showed that a key issue observed by patients is the difficulty of getting a GP appointment when they need it. The CCG is urging people to be mindful of the fact that by not cancelling their appointment if they no longer need one, they are depriving someone else who could be in real need.
Dr Anand Deshpande, Chair of Thurrock CCG, said: “We knew that there was an issue, but the survey has highlighted the scale of the problem. GP surgeries regularly observe dozens, and for the larger practices, hundreds of DNAs every month.
The CCG is committed to ensuring that patients can access their GP when they need to and we have been developing ideas to plug the gaps in response to what patients have been telling us. But we can’t do it alone. We are appealing to people to always remember to cancel their appointment if they no longer need it.”
