Missed NI Appointments Worry BMA

NI doctors are increasingly concerned about the number of people who have failed to turn up for their hospital appointments - thereby wasting valuable resources within the Department of Health as these could have been allotted to others.

A British Medical Association (BMA) spokeswoman said they are concerned in particular at the number of patients who did not attend their appointments.

"We understand that not all patients will be able to attend the appointment times given to them, but had these patients advised that they were unable to attend, their appointment could have been allotted to another patient."

The new figures, just published, showed that patients missed a total of 176,983 appointments during 2009/10 and patients also cancelled 184,693 appointments.

In counterpoint, hospitals cancelled 198,346 appointments, a hospital cancellation rate of 11.4, which was down 0.9 points on the rate reported for 2008/09.

The local BMA spokeswoman continued: "In terms of the figures that show that appointments were cancelled due to unavailability of consultants, the total figure of cancellations is equivalent to 3.2% of patients seen.

"BMA once again states that more consultants are needed in the Northern Ireland medical workforce to treat patients. The current recruitment freeze will only exacerbate the problem," she said, noting there is no detail given as to why these appointments were cancelled, although some cancellations are likely to be due to consultants taking annual leave to which they are entitled.

"Consultants are generally required to submit leave requests a minimum of six weeks in advance, which should give the Trust sufficient time to reschedule clinics or appoint locum cover," she continued.

The report also shows other key information such as there being 583,501 inpatient and day case admissions to hospital in Northern Ireland.

This was a decrease of 1.0% (6,002) on the number of admissions during 2008/09 but was up 6.6% (36,157) on the number admitted during 2005/06. 51.3% (299,878) of the admissions during 2009/10 were inpatient admissions, with the other 48.7% (283,623) patients admitted as day cases.

It also showed that the average number of available beds throughout Northern Ireland decreased by 11.7% (962) from 8,238 to 7,276.

The greatest decrease in average available beds was evident in the Elderly Care programme of care, which decreased by 215 beds (-17.1%) from 1,259 in 2008/09 to 1,044 in 2009/10.

Meanwhile, the average length of stay in hospitals has fallen consistently each year from 8.5 days in 2005/06 to 7.2 days in 2009/10.

In the last year average length of stay fell by 0.2 days from 7.4 days to 7.2 days.

On Outpatients, the figures showed that 1,542,961 patients were seen at consultant-led services - a decrease of 20,869 (-1.3%) on the 1,563,830 seen during the previous year, but was up 22,626 (+1.5%) on the number seen in 2005/06.

(BMcC/GK)