Thousands miss Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire GP appointments

Health officials have said that an increase in the number of missed GP appointments in Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire is having an impact on services.

According to the latest data, over 38,000 GP appointments across the two regions were missed in one month.

Dr Satpal Shekhawat of North Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group said the number equated to nearly 600 hours of clinical work in his area, adding “That’s too big a loss when we are under pressure to see people.”

Dr Shekhawat said that there were 3,600 missed appointments in November in North Lincolnshire alone, which was an increase of around 600 on the previous month, around 3.5 per cent of the total number of appointments offered, which equates to the time of “about 15 full-time GPs”.

He went on to say “We’ve lost that time where we could have seen someone else and that person who wanted the appointment (is probably) going to contact us again for another appointment.”

Figures show that missed appointments have also increased in surrounding areas, with East Yorkshire seeing the biggest increase, up from 3,608 in September to 7,069 in November.  There were 7,966 missed appointments in Hull, 2,907 in North East Lincolnshire and 16,000 in Lincolnshire.

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Posted by Karen Motley, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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