The North's Minister of Health Michael McGimpsey has challenged a report claiming that cancelled medical appointments are adding £12 million a year to the cost of the North's health service.
The Assembly Public Accounts Committee yesterday published a report stating that almost 400,000 patients fail to turn up for their appointments each year in Northern Ireland.
This was "an astonishing statistic", the watchdog committee said.
"Northern Ireland has traditionally had the highest clinic non-attendance rate among its health service counterparts in the United Kingdom," the committee reported.
"This element of unpredictability costs the health service around £12 million a year, makes managing clinics difficult and can lead to a poor service and longer waiting times," it added.
It called on health trusts to adopt "challenging but achievable reduction targets" to improve attendance records.
Mr McGimpsey said he would carefully consider the report but disputed some findings. He said non-attendance rates were unacceptably high but had fallen and were now comparable to the rest of the UK.
Mr McGimpsey said there were particular problems relating to attendance at mental health clinics, and saving £12 million was unrealisable.
" For this reason, and the fact that there will always be some patients who fail to turn up for their appointments, often for legitimate reasons, the £12 million savings referred to in the committee's report is not in practice realisable. Some further efficiencies can certainly be secured, but not to the extent suggested within the report."
