Failing to turn up for an appointment May 2025

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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 had the following consultations;

  • 3213 GP contacts
  • 1605 nurse contacts
  • 661 patients were seen by a pharmacist
  • 219 patients were seen by a physiotherapist

Unfortunately we had a large number of DNA’s;

  • 176 patients did not attend a GP appointment
  • 137 did not their nurse appointment
  • 8 did not attend their pharmacist appointment
  • 17 did not attend their physiotherapist appointment

Most GP appointments are 10 minutes long – this means 30 hours of GP time was wasted.

Help your surgery save appointment wastage by cancelling an appointment if you know you cannot attend.  You can cancel using the following methods:

  • Telephone the surgery and press option (1) to cancel (this function is available outside of normal surgery hours)
  • Speak to a receptionist
  • NHS App (this function is available outside of normal surgery hours)
  • SystmOne online (this function is available outside of normal surgery hours)