236 Nurse Appointments were missed in the six months to 30th November 2016                    

We are all guilty of occasionally missing appointments, often for unavoidable reasons.  At the Hollies all staff providing health services experience the problem of patients not showing up for their appointment. However the most worrying problem at the moment relates to a significant number of patients who fail to attend appointments with the Nursing staff. This number of patients who do not keep their appointment to see a nurse represents 7.4% of the total and this failure to attend usually occurs when patients have to wait two weeks or more.

Those patients who fail to keep their appointment are denying someone else the chance to get earlier access to medical help.

The Hollies Patient Forum fully supports the Practice in their desire to lessen the number of missed appointments.  This will reduce waiting times and allow our nurses to spend more time with patients supporting them to manage their chronic illnesses.  Both of these things will help to keep Hollies patients healthy and improve the service to you.

Please keep a reminder of your appointment in a convenient place.  If you find you cannot attend it is important to let the Practice know so that the slot may be offered to someone else and in doing so we can help reduce waiting times.

The practice will also send out reminder texts 2 days before nurse appointments to patients who have provided a mobile phone number.

With your help and co-operation we can make the Hollies nursing service speedier and even more efficient.

Mike Loughlin

Chair

The Hollies Patient Forum

Jan 2017