MORE THAN half a million patients scheduled for outpatient appointments at public hospitals across the State last year failed to show up for their appointments, it has emerged.
Figures collated by the Department of Health indicate that, while more than three million patients attended outpatient appointments in 2007, the non-attendance rate by those with appointments was over 18 per cent – or about 650,000 non-attendances.
The Health Service Executive’s (HSE’s) own performance monitoring report for January this year showed that while there were 278,000 outpatient attendances during the first month of the year, more than 51,000 patients with appointments did not attend them.
The HSE has confirmed it is now considering additional ways of reducing the numbers of non-attendees who take up slots which could be used by other patients on waiting lists. It is also looking at reducing the number of times patients are called back for check-ups. Last year, for every new patient who attended an outpatient appointment, up to three others were patients on return visits.
Michael Scanlan, secretary general of the Department of Health, said last week when he revealed the non-attendance figures at the Oireachtas public accounts committee that they showed there was “already capacity within the system” to reduce outpatient waiting times.
“The total number of outpatient attendances in 2007 was over three million but there was a very high rate [over 18 per cent] of ‘Did not Attend’ and the ratio of new to return attendances is too low [1:2.8],” he said.
Figures released late last year indicated patients can still be waiting years for outpatient appointments at hospitals across the State.
Mr Scanlan said an innovative solution to the problem of people not showing up in the physiotherapy department of Dublin’s St James’s Hospital might be adopted elsewhere. He said the non-attendance rate there was as high as 21 per cent but was reduced to 10 per cent after a text message reminder service to patients was introduced. In addition, the hours during which patients could attend were extended to 8am-6pm, allowing greater patient access and choice of appointment.
The HSE said yesterday it would be working with hospitals on key opportunities to improve outpatient services for both patients and staff. “Amongst the targeted improvements will be reducing [the number of] patients who fail to turn up for appointments so that these appointments can be used by other patients. Currently, ‘Did not Attend’ rates can be between 10 and 20 per cent in some hospitals. A key goal will be to reduce that number to 5 per cent,” it said.
Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients Association said the figure for non-attendances at outpatients in 2007 was enormous. He said he would encourage everyone with an appointment to turn up or inform their hospital in advance if they are not going to be able to make it.
“But you have to make it easy for patients. Often these appointments are given out months and months in advance and people forget about them,” he said. “There should be some sort of reminder system.”
He said the cost of a reminder system by way of text message or a card in the post would save the HSE money in the long run if all the hours wasted when patients didn’t turn up went towards treating other patients.
“If you take it that every patient gets about 10 minutes with a doctor and 650,000 don’t turn up, that’s the equivalent of over six million minutes or over 100,000 man hours . . . that is a huge waste,” he said.