A GP practice in Herne Bay says it is struggling to cope with winter demand as patients book appointments and fail to show.

Bosses at Heron Medical Practice have bemoaned the crucial time lost to missed slots across its four doctors’ surgeries.

Alarming new figures reveal almost 70 nursing appointments were missed in just one week across St Anne’s, William Street, Beltinge and Reculver, and Hersden.

Frustrated staff are now calling on patients to inform them when they are unable to attend, in order to prevent time being wasted.

Senior nurse Rachel Bain said: “Two weeks ago, we carried out an audit to see how much time was lost when patients didn’t turn up for appointments for the nursing team.

“The time lost added up to 16.8 hours of nursing appointments that could have been offered to others.

“We are really struggling to find appointments for our patients that need them, especially at this busy time of year.”

The NHS has previously estimated 15 million general practice appointments are wasted each year through patients failing to attend - costing it hundreds of millions of pounds.

Ms Bain says her surgeries are rarely told the reasons for missed bookings, but believes it tends to be due to patients forgetting.

Practice business manager Helen Sutton says it prevents the group from working efficiently.

“It’s very frustrating when our nurses volunteer to work through their breaks to fit patients in who need urgent attention – yet people make appointments and for whatever reason just don’t attend or even let us know,” she added.

“This will ultimately have a knock-on effect on everyone in the practice.

'We are really struggling to find appointments for our patients that need them, especially at this busy time of year' - Heron Medical Practice senior nurse Rachel Bain

“For example, the patient who missed their appointment will most likely phone the surgery again to remake the appointment – taking up another call to reception – or the nursing team administrators will have to write to that patient to invite them back in.”

Last summer, bosses from Park Surgery in Kings Road, Herne Bay, called on patients to stop “time wasting” after it was revealed more than 1,700 GP appointments were missed over a period of four months.

But practice manager Hannah Walker says the numbers have fallen significantly since it started sending text message reminders ahead of bookings.

“We’re not losing as many appointments,” she said.

“Compared to the number of appointments that we offer each week, it’s now a relatively small percentage.

“If you do lose a large amount of appointment time it means you’ve got someone sitting around doing nothing when they could be seeing patients.

“You also have patients who are waiting to be seen and are phoning up, not able to get appointments.”

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