GP leaders oppose fines for missed appointments

The party are responding to a report showing that 1.2 million hospital appointments have been missed in the last three years, at a cost of £60 million a year. A BBC Wales poll earlier this year revealed that eight in ten Welsh people would support fines for both missed GP and hospital appointments.

However GP leaders have responded by reminding the public that issuing fines risked damaging the doctor patient relationship.

An RCGP spokesperson told the BBC: “Introducing a charge for appointments would fundamentally change one of the founding principles of general practice, that healthcare is free at the point of need. Missed appointments can be frustrating but in many cases there are valid reasons for patients not being able to attend, and they can be warning signs that something more serious is wrong.”

This follows Health secretary Jeremy Hunt recently saying he has ‘no problem’ with the principle of charging patients for missed GP appointments. He said: “We are very stretched for resources, doctors and nurses are working incredibly hard and we’re going to have a million more over-70s by the end of this Parliament.

“If we are going to square the circle and have a fantastic NHS, despite all those pressures, then we have got to take personal responsibility for the way that we use NHS resources. I don’t actually have a problem in principle with the idea of charging people for missed appointments.”