Rishi Sunak Wants £10 Fines for Missing GP and Hospital Appointments

Maybe people will think twice to cancel an appointment without good reason. Hopefully the money goes towards NHS

They would need to start doing appointments first, my Gp service is a bit wizard of oz. You never know it might make more appointments available, may be hard to administrate I have never seen a doctor or dentist on time, would normally expect to wait for them. It could be a good earner if they pay you £10 when they cancel or are unavailable at the time of your appointment, only seams fair.

Perhaps they could pay us for when they are running late and you have to make up the time at work so you don’t lose money - it has to work both ways!

I think its a good idea too if the money goes back in to NHS

In theory not such a bad idea, but what would be the cost in both monetary terms and staff hours of issuing and collecting these fines , also chasing non payers etc.

Would be £50 if I had my way.

My surgery decided to give me an appointment with 2 hours notice but I had no knowledge of it. It was sent as a SMS message but I didn't have my phone with me at the time as it was charging. It's the only appointment I've ever missed with a doctor and wouldn't want to be fined for that. I think someone else must have cancelled and they were trying to fill the appointment slot. The surgery in question had lots of issues and was taken over by a NHS trust due to the high level of complaints.

This is a great Idea agree with you it should have been done a long time ago

Appointments are sometimes missed because the hospital letter hasn’t been delivered to the patient in time. There would need to be an appeal department so creating more jobs.

Penalizing people automatically than know if something happened to them is a huge flaw with this idea.

This doctor makes very good points whereas GBN's presenter lacks the aware of and some of you here.

For a "Conservative" this sure seems more towards the left.

If they charge us for a no-show how much will we get when they aren't available at the allotted time? They are always late and don't think twice about wasting our time.

They also send letters to the wrong addresses or not at all so unless they have had written acceptance of an appointment they can't guarantee that you have been told about it.

I agree with him. Obviously you have nothing to fear nor pay out if you keep your appointments, or let them know in advance if you can't make it. I have only missed one appointment in my entire life but cannot for the life of me remember why.

You'd have to be able to get a GP appointment first.

The main trouble with something like this is that it would end up costing the NHS more that it got back. It would end up being given to some private company to run and make a vast profit on, with no benefit to the NHS itself. If we had a competent government then maybe it could work, be we haven't. The other thing is that its not always the patients fault (although more often than not it is) and it will once again be the most vulnerable in society who will end up being penalised the most and end up getting even less care than the little they are getting now.

I've seen the stats (maybe we should all have checked before commenting ? ) . Why because a Doctors appointment is free . As it should be of course .

Percentage of "no shows " is above 30% Nationwide and over 80% in certain areas .

I accept there may be many reasons for "No shows " - but I'd bet my bottom dollar that if a refundable £10 deposit were required for a booking then the "no shows " would be vastly reduced (or at least they would ring to cancel and not waste clinicians time ?) .

I'm with those who find it extremely difficult to get an appointment at our local practise as they are jammed with booked appointments (a good proportion who don't turn up )

Yes of course access to a clinician should be free it's the NHS after all . But to those who have commented to say they can never get an appointment anyway - Perhaps the answer is right in front of your face - all the no shows , which a refundable deposit would help fix - With obviously all the necessary safeguards to ensure that those short of funds would be exempt the deposit ?

I'd go 1 step further and privatise the lot.

You wouldn't dare miss an appointment then.

Plus people would actually start paying more attention to their health and fitness levels.

Genuine hereditary cases are out of ones control and therefore people shouldn't be penalised.

However the majority of cases were self infliction is involved I'd say PAY UP.

I'm 99% always on the side of the NHS but if I had a £1 for everytime leading up to an appointment normally within a few days I get a phonecall or my wife has her appointment cancelled or rearranged for a later date .

I do think its a good idea but level playing field and if the hospitals or doctors cancel you at the last moment then there should be some sort of retribution or say for example my wife is on the waiting list for surgery and say she is given a date for the surgery and the hospital is rewarded for doing it on that date . If they cancel or rearrange they lose the bonus but if they bring it forward its a bigger reward or same day a reward but not as large and cancel and no reward.

Rubbish headlines for all the wrong reason. I wouldn't pay it if I missed an appointment. After all when I had a doctors' appointment, I was seen to 1-2 hours later!! And why are not the Tories doing this now rather than later? Because Rishi Sunak have no intention of honouring this pledge.

Ludicrous idea, impossible to police it properly for one. I have had to miss doctors appointments before as I was in hospital- mainly unconscious- and no the hospitals don’t have time to contact my GP in case I had an appointment. Another GP appointment I missed as I had an epileptic seizure in the way to them to discuss my epilepsy medication. Moaning about being seen late for an appointment- would you appreciate it if an alarm clock went off during your appointment as your time was up - so if you had fully discussed what you were there for or not you had to leave - that would ensure everyone was seen on time ? We are humans - not machines. If I have to wait past my appointment time I quite relieved- it means whoever I am going to see doesn’t try to rush the patients out of the door just to try to stay on time and then miss something important. Is it this government that decided GP’s should keep appointments to 10 minutes or less to be able to keep up with demand ? But then isn’t it medical staff that have put their lives on the line during the pandemic- they still had face to face appointments with issues that couldn’t be dealt with over the phone. Please please look at the problem a little more deeply before you judge.