NHS England has warned that Patients miss One in 20 GP appointments and it is costing the NHS on average £200m every year. The Latest NHS Digital GP appointments data suggests that 15.4m GP appointments are going to waste every year because Patients who don't turn up are not giving staff sufficient notice make the appointments available to other Patients. Of the wasted appointments, just under half - 7.2m were scheduled with GP's themselves. This adds up to more than 1.2m GP hours wasted each year - the cost equivalent of over 600 GPs working full time for a year.

NHS England urged People who could not attend to cancel appointments. With each appointment slot costing the NHS an average of £30, the cost of the missed GP appointments comes to about £216m a year. 

NHS England states this could pay for either;

• The annual salary of 2,325 Full time GPs;
• 224,640 Cataract Operations;
• 58,320 Hip Replacement Operations;
• 216,000 Drug Treatment courses for Alzheimer's or;
• The Annual Salary of 8,424 Full time Community Nurses. 

In our Practice from 01/01/2018 to 01/01/2019 we have had 1,772 wasted appointments. All of which could've been cancelled and made available for another Patient.