Written answers
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Department of Health
Hospital Appointments
Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Health the percentage of outpatients not turning up for scheduled outpatient appointments and not giving any notice; the estimated cost of this to the health service; if penalties financial or otherwise for a person not cancelling an outpatient appointment are being considered by the Government. [47406/12]
Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Health in view of the large number of patients who miss appointments in our acute hospital services, if he will consider introducing an e-mail and text messaging service in hospital outpatient departments; if he will provide any costings in relation to any proposals he is considering regarding same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47431/12]
James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1000 and 1004 together.
Table 1 sets out a yearly sum of patients who missed scheduled appointments (did not attend) from 2008 to 2010, along with those who attended and total number of appointments booked (supplied by the HSE Business Intelligence Unit). The DNA rate is calculated by taking the number of missed appointments (DNAs) as a percentage of the total number of attendances and missed appointments combined. While hospitals returned activity, including DNA data across 2011, this data was not compiled / processed by BIU due to the roll out of the Outpatient Data Quality Programme.
Table 1. Outpatients - Attendances and DNAs 2008, 2009, 2010
Year | No of New Attendances | No of Return Attendances | No of Appointments Missed (DNA) | No of Return Appointments Missed (DNA) | All Appointments Booked | DNA as a % of all appointments booked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 860,910 | 2,428,007 | 142,404 | 414,295 | 3,845,616 | 14.5 |
| 2009 | 930,014 | 2,489,691 | 161,862 | 428,702 | 4,010,269 | 14.7 |
| 2010 | 999,978 | 2,583,312 | 168,067 | 429,051 | 4,180,408 | 14.3 |
RAW DATA SOURCE: HSE BIU
While acute hospitals currently have in place a variety of DNA (did not attend) policies, a standardised approach is now being developed as part of a national Outpatient Performance Improvement Programme. This Programme, developed by the Special Delivery Unit (SDU) will be implemented nationally over the period 2012 to 2015 to improve the provision of outpatient services. The Programme will address the management of DNAs as well as a range of other issues.
If a patient finds they cannot attend the appointment they have been given I would appeal to all such patients to inform the clinic concerned as soon as they know they cannot attend.
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