Failing to turn up for an appointment

Posted by: monifap - Posted on:

DON’T BE A DNA

A DNA is a someone who DID NOT ATTEND an appointment at the surgery and did not tell us beforehand so we could cancel the appointment and offer it to someone else. 

Last month our staff saw;

  • 7423 patients were seen by a GP
  • 1946 patients were seen by a nurse
  • 763 patients were seen by a pharmacist
  • 196 patients were seen by a physiotherapist
  • 27 patients were seen by a social prescriber

Unfortunately we had a large number of DNA’s;

  • 196 patients did not attend a GP appointment
  • 200 did not their nurse appointment
  • 32 did not attend their pharmacist appointment
  • 18 did not attend their physiotherapist appointment
  • 4 did not attend their social prescriber appointment

This equates to approximately 135 hours of wasted clinical time which could have been used for other patients.   To reduce the number of DNAs we will be reviewing our DNAs and contacting those patients who have failed to attend an appointment in line with the policy below. 

You can cancel an appointment by following methods:

  • Speak to a receptionist
  • Telephone the surgery and press option (1) to cancel
  • NHS App
  • SystmOne online

Dr Taylor and Partners DNA POLICY (30.6.24)

As a practice we inform all patients of their pending appointment, this may be by text, telephone or letter at least 24 hours before the appointment date.  In return we would ask our patients to inform the practice of a cancellation at least 2 hours prior to the appointment time. 

If a patient misses an appointment (face-to-face or telephone) with the doctor, nurse, physiotherapist or pharmacist they will automatically be sent a text reminding the patient to cancel  future appointments.

If the patient fails to attend a further appointment within the same month we will send a letter/text to the patient explaining it is not acceptable and inform the patient of ways to cancel their appointment and should this continue we would consider removal from the practice List.

If the patient then fails to attend another appointment the following month (e.g. 3 appointments in 2 months) the patients details will be passed on to the Practice Manager.  The Practice Manager will contact the patient to discuss the issue and explain there will be a meeting with GP partners to decide on next step – which could be removal from list.

We appreciate that on occasions there are special circumstances which may have resulted in a DNA – e.g. certain illnesses such as dementia or hospital admission etc.  If you inform reception that this applies to you we will take this into consideration. If you feel that a DNA letter has been sent in error please contact reception staff to discuss this further.