WORCESTERSHIRE Acute Hospitals Trust speaks out amid reports the NHS potentially lost more than £3 million in missed appointments.

The Trust has released a statement addressing the 19,865 missed appointments out of the 514,220 booked between April and December last year.

Matthew Hopkins, Chief Executive of the Trust, said “We would urge any patients who no longer need their appointment to contact us, at the earliest possible opportunity, so that time can be used for the benefit of other patients.”

Mr Hopkins appeals to the public after NHS Digital Data revealed the shocking figures that “no-shows” were potentially costing the NHS £760 million nation wide. This equals to the devastating amount of 5 million missed appointments across the country.

He said, “We understand that during the pandemic patients may have been reluctant to come into a hospital setting for an appointment which is one of the reasons we have been offering telephone or video outpatient consultations to as many patients as possible.”

Whilst many have complained of the long waiting list to see their GP, statistics show that many of the missed appointments coincided with the peaks of the pandemic. One facebook user said "What we all forget is that we were in a national pandemic and there was no known cure for this infection."

Complaints of long wait times and cancelled hospital appointments haves since been reported with another facebook user saying "I have 16 letters from the last year of appointments being made ten cancelled the same day".

Mr Hopkins said “Flexible options will be continued because we know they offer many patients greater convenience. For those patients who need a face to face appointment as the pandemic eases we are now able to make more of these available. Whatever type of appointment people are offered our message is the same - please keep it or cancel it”.