THE HSE has said it has taken the decision to display the cost of missed hospital appointments to remind patients who do not attend of the loss to the public purse, and the clinician’s time.
Earlier this month, the Donegal News reported how there were 219 ‘no show’ outpatient appointments in a two-week period between January 15 to January 31.
The figures, shared to us by a reader, resulted in €28,251 in wasted healthcare resources and hundreds of hours of lost care.
The specialty with the most missed appointments was Fracture (55), followed by Paediatric Medicine (39). Orthopaedics and Urology saw 25 and 15 missed appointments, respectively, according to the figures.
General surgery accounted for 15 no shows, while General Medicine saw 10 missed appointments in the two-week timeframe. There were 12 missed appointments in Respiratory Medicine, while Ear, Nose and Throat accounted for eight no shows.
Chair of Regional Health Forum West, Councillor Gerry McMonagle had described the number of missed appointments as “worrying”.
In a statement to this newspaper this week, a HSE spokesperson said it was agreed at LUH’s Scheduled Care Governance Group in January to publicly display the figure for missed appointments.
“When a patient is issued an appointment and fails to attend this is classified as a Did Not Attend (DNA).
“Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH) follows the HSE’s Outpatient DNA Strategy which was launched in June 2023 by the Acute Operations Team of the HSE. The figure of €129 per missed appointment was taken from the DNA Strategy and it was agreed at LUH’s Scheduled Care Governance Group in January 2026 to display this figure, to help remind patients who do not attend an appointment that there is an actual loss to the public purse, alongside the loss in clinician’s time.”
The statement added that the HSE has a number of measures in place to help support patient attendance at outpatient clinics, which includes regular reminders via text message and letters and validation of waiting lists to ensure patients still require the appointment.
“The HSE Health App also provides some information on upcoming appointments, and plans are in place to expand on this. Patients are encouraged to attend their healthcare appointments and if they are unable to attend, to contact the hospital to reschedule at the earliest opportunity. This enables the hospital to allocate the appointment to another patient and ensure that access to a service is maximised.”
