Rishi Sunak says he will introduce £10 fines to people missing GP appts

General Chat In The News
#1

£10 fine if you mss GP or hospital appointment.

Can’t see that ever being possible since millions are owed to the NHS by health tourists getting their ops here and clearing off back home without paying. I can’t see WHY we can’t get on top of this because most other countries do. Every week there is an appeal to help with a Brit abroad who has met with an accident or given birth prematurely and the hospital is insisting they must pay up.

Then there are the patients with memory problems or dementia, people with learning difficulties who might get confused and missed the appointment.

There are also often serious traffic delays or accidents en route to hospital. We recently left home two hours before a hospital appointment 25 miles away. We met with roadworks, an accident, a closed road and lengthy detour and got to the hospital to find no parking spaces. It was hubby’s appt so I suggested he went in and I would drive around until a space came free. He got in just as the nurse was calling his name.
Sometimes it really isn’t your fault.

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#2

Problems Rishi Sunak has overlooked because he no experience of being treated by NHS. Plus the gridlock which occurs daily on major roads, and lack of public transport, making any journey a nightmare.

How much money do asylum seekers get in the UK?

£40.85 per person

#3

This I agree with Sunak something has to be done to solve the problem of missed appointments costing the NHS millions £

2019
Patients urged to cancel appointments rather than just not show up.

More than 15 million general practice appointments are being wasted each year because patients do not turn up and fail to warn surgeries that they will not be attending.

There are around 307 million sessions scheduled with GPs, nurses, therapists and other practice staff every year and 5% – one in twenty – are missed without enough notice to invite other patients. That works out as around 15.4 million missed slots.

Of these, around 7.2million are with busy family doctors, which adds up to more than 1.2 million GP hours wasted each year – the equivalent of over 600 GPs working full time for a year.

Each appointment costs an average of £30, putting the total cost to the NHS at more than £216million pounds on top of the disruption for staff and fellow patients that would pay for:

  • 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
  • The annual salary of 8, 424 full time community nurses
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#4

But if they can’t recoup any money from people from overseas coming here and getting their very expensive operations done here for free, how does he think he’s going to get all these tenners from people?

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#5

Getting the money from us at our home address that we registered with the GP surgery, is far easier than trying get a couple of thousand from a foreign person who gives a fake address, or is staying “c/o” someone.

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#6

Learn to pronounce the word ‘No’ and stop them coming. Would save thousands of pounds.

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#7

Well oversea patients that’s another matter …
Every Brit has a hospital number that carries info on who they are making collection easier.
Also when attending hospital you’re asked a series of questions about yourself

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#8

Perhaps all who travel to the Uk should have travel insurance to cover any unexpected medical treatment.

Surely the report was talking about GP appointments which should be near to where you live? If I had been dim enough to forget my GP appointment I would happily pay £10, and if I was unable to get there I would always cancel the appointment asap and apologize, in the hope that it wouldn’t waste the doctors time.

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#9

I’d pay a tenner just to get a face to face one now.

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#10

Ditto, but have attended appointments only to be told it has been cancelled, with no apology for a wasted journey or explanation.

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#11

I’m all for fines .
However whether t£10 will cover the cost of Issuing the fine is debatable

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#12

Like everything else that’s Universal, this is going to cause more pain to the poor than the wealthy

Will the reasonably well off be encouraged not to miss appointments because of a tenner?

Maybe, but I doubt it will be the deciding factor to them as to whether they attend or not

Will the poor be encouraged not to miss appointments because of a tenner?

Probably

But will poor people who struggle to get to the surgery due to mobility problems, lack of transport, age related memory loss, unable to get time off work, zero hours contracts and they’re called into work suddenly, caring responsibilities that can change suddenly, just feeling too ill to attend, being to frightened to attend, be put off booking an appointment, in case they can’t make it?

Possibly

Either way, I suppose, the NHS will get the tenner

But it might well cost more than a tenner to collect it. How will it be done? Will you get sent a bill? What if you don’t pay? Will it go to court? Bailiffs?

What about people on benefits and pension credits, will they pay too or be exempt?

I think this is just a vote chaser on his part. It’s not going to save the NHS. An awful lot of people struggle to get an appointment at all, let alone miss it

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#13

But will it work both ways ?..
And if you have your hospital appointment/treatment or surgery cancelled with very little notice can you charge recompense if you’d booked a taxi or taken a day off work?

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#14

If you can’t make your appointment ring up and cancel!

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#15

Have an appointment cancelled would be because of an emergency or beyond the doctors control
Although it might as you say occur with little notice.

The proposed fine is for people who don’t bother to keep their appointments ,people who can’t be bothered to cancel.
I believe they are two completely different issues.

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#16

Again, though, if you’re wealthy, a £10 fine probably won’t be enough to make you phone to cancel, if you couldn’t be bothered before

And sometimes the reasons for missing appointments like depression, being scared, caring crisis, aged related memory loss or feeling too ill might be reasons you didn’t cancel too

I just don’t think it’s enough money to scare people into attending if they genuinely just couldn’t be bothered before

And that probably only a fairly small proportion of missed appointments are down to people not being bothered and that there may well be other reasons

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#17

If you are feeling to poorly to travel you call 111 for immediate medical advice and guidance.
Should it be an emergency dial 999 .
Most people suffering from bewilderment don’t make their own way to hospital.
GP surgeries are local if there’s a problem getting to the surgery ring up.
My GP practice has a live screen showing the number of missed appointments that week that month.
There will always be anomalies traffic etc .
However when finally reaching the hospital you explain the situation.
No I still believe the fine is for the bad mannered public who for one reason or another can’t be bothered the cancel an appointment

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#18

Given that people are struggling to actually see a GP at this point in time it would seem very unfair if someone was deprived of an appointment because of somebody else’s apathy.

Has Rishi Sunak elaborated and explained how this is going to be administered?
I’d just like to see the small print.

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#19

I suppose so, but I just don’t think there are that many of those and that people don’t attend for other reasons

If you are in chronic pain, or depressed, you don’t need 111 or 999, you might just not be able to force yourself to attend or phone

If you are a drug user or alcoholic, or homeless or in a chaotic destructive lifestyle situation, you may not be structured enough to attend or phone

If you are scared of attending and scared of the proposed treatment or the news you might hear, you may be too scared or embarrassed to phone

If you are old, or confused or have memory lost, you may forget the appointment

And umpteen other reasons.

I just think the ones who can’t be bothered won’t think losing a tenner is enough to make them be bothered

But that not being bothered probably isn’t the main reason for missing appontments

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#20

Well When you’re in great pain and having to wait months for to see a consultant or an operation knowing there have been 1000s wasted appointments it’s heartbreaking …. Not to mention Costing the NHS millions something has to happen !
If you’re to drunk or drugged up to the armpits to cancel an appointment expect to be fined .

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