Sick will be texted appointments

Sorcha Dougan, Western Trust Out Patient Access Manager said: “The aim of this initiative is to reduce the number of ‘Did Not Attends’ (DNAs) that the Trust experience every year across its hospital sites.

“In 2010/11 approximately 23,000 outpatient appointments were missed across the Trust, a rate of 9%, or almost one in 10 outpatients failed to turn up for their appointment. By implementing this new service the Trust hopes to dramatically reduce this rate.”

In September 2012, the number of DNAs for outpatient appointments at Altnagelvin Hospital was 1188, at Roe Valley Hospital it was 61, at Tyrone County Hospital it was 962 and for the South West Acute Hospital it was 830.

Geraldine McKay, Western Trust Assistant Director for Surgery and Anaesthetics added: “Every year, thousands of patients miss their hospital appointments because they forget when it is.

“We know there are genuine reasons why some patients do not attend for their appointments but every missed appointment is a lost opportunity for someone else to be seen. This service alerts patients to their appointment and encourages them to contact us to rearrange, if they are unable to attend.”

Patients who as a result of receiving the reminder give advanced notification to cancel or reschedule will free up their appointment time which can be reallocated to other patients on the waiting list. This will reduce outpatient waiting lists and ensure the Trust makes best use of its staff and resources.

This new service will be rolled out across all outpatient appointments from November 19, 2012. There is provision for patients to inform the Trust if they do not wish to receive a reminder.

Posters and leaflets are available across Western Trust Outpatient Departments to inform patients and help answer any queries they may have.

If anyone requires further information about the Outpatient Appointment Reminder Service please get in touch with the Patient Access Department on 02871345171 extension 215369.

The issued of irresponsible timewasters failing to inform the health authorities they were cancelling appointments, which could have been freed for other sick people, has been reported by the Sentinel in the past.

Two years ago we revealed patients failed to turn up for almost 15,000 hospital appointments at Altnagelvin in 2009/10 with a staggering 50,000 appointments missed across the Western Trust.

Consultants saw almost 150,000 patients at the Londonderry hospital over the year but 4,325 new patients and 10,454 review patients failed to turn up for scheduled appointments.

Across the larger Western Trust the pattern was repeated with a whopping 52,034 patients failing to arrive in time for planned appointments.

Over 35,000 of these were new patients and over 16,000 review attendances.

The figures were contained in a report on hospital outpatient activity in 2009/10.