Missed Appointments (DNA) Policy

Riverside Highland Medical Group is committed to ensuring that the best possible service is provided to all patients registered with all of our Practices. 

As with many other GP surgeries we are experiencing a high level of demand for our services.  We understand that it can sometimes be difficult to get a routine appointment.

One thing that makes this increasingly difficult to overcome is the problem of Missed Appointments (also referred to as a DNA – “Did Not Attend”).

A Missed Appointment is an occasion on which a patient does not attend a pre-booked appointment with a member of the practice team, where the patient has not contacted the Practice in advance to cancel or when the cancellation is so late that it makes it impossible to allocate that time to another patient who may need it.

Non-attendance at a booked appointment adversely impacts on Practice staff and its patients in the following manner:

• It take away the opportunity of another patient accessing the appointment.
• Increases waiting time for appointments.
• The time and personnel required to follow-up and rebook missed appointments diverts Practice staff from other duties. 

In order to reduce the amount of missed appointment that occur, RHMG will monitor the number of times a patient misses an appointments.

Each time an appointment is missed communication will be sent, either by SMS or letter, to the patient advising them that they have missed an appointment and emphasise the importance of attending or cancelling appointments.

If a patient misses three appointments at any point within a twelve month period they will hit a trigger point that will dictate that further action must be taken.

We understand that mistakes do happen and that appointments can be forgotten or overlooked.  In such cases, the Practice will take into account the reason given by patients. 

However appointments being repeatedly missed is something that RHMG must endeavour to reduce.

To aid in this, we ask that if you cannot attend or no longer need an appointment that you please let us know as soon as is possible.

You can do this in any one of the following ways:

• By telephone; please call the practice on 01381 600224. 
• In person at the Reception Desk.
• By responding that you need/want to cancel via the SMS reminder that you will receive the day prior to your appointment.

To access our full Missed appointment policy, please see the link below:

RHMG Missed Appointment Policy