GP Crisis: North East & Cumbria patients miss 778,000 appointments in 2022

Missed GP appointments in the North East and Cumbria cost the NHS over £23 million in 2022.
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Patients in the North East missed over 778,000 GP appointments over the course of 2022, despite a crisis that means it is increasingly hard for those who are sick to see a local doctor.

Figures released by the NHS for January through to November this year show that almost one in 20 appointments sees a patient fail to turn up across the UK with the NHS losing an average total of 42,000 daily appointments every day due to no-shows.

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Locally, the NHS North East and North Cumbria recorded 778,539 of 17,116,917 appointments as missed, which comes out at 4.5%. That percentage is 0.2% lower than the national average of 4.7%, but still cost the local health board an estimated £23,356,170 over the 11 months.

The worst affected area by no-shows was the NHS North East London where 6.4% of appointments were missed. Meanwhile, the NHS Mid and South Essex have the most reliable patients with only 3.1% of appointments missed.

Data from NHS England released in November showed that a higher percentage of patients at 10 GP surgeries in Newcastle are waiting more than 28 days for an appointment than the national average - up to 11.9%, recorded at Newburn Surgery.

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A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Every appointment missed is taxpayers’ money wasted, and we strongly encourage patients to attend their GP appointments.

“We are incredibly grateful to GPs and their staff, whose hard work ensured that in the 12 months up to October 2022, there were around 93,000 more GP appointments every working day compared to last year.”

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An NHS spokesperson added: “Record numbers of people are being treated by the NHS with millions more GP appointments being delivered compared to before the pandemic.

“The message however to patients is clear and has not changed - it is vital that people seek care when they need it.”