MORE than 15,500 GP practice appointments were missed in Wiltshire over the last three months.

The "shocking" number of GP, nurse and healthcare assistant appointments being missed across the county's 55 GP practices between July and September equates to 516 lost days of general practitioner time.

Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is urging patients to take a few minutes to cancel their appointments if they are no longer required, or if they are unable to attend. Practices will then be able to offer those slots to other patients who require them and help to reduce appointment waiting times.

Dr Peter Jenkins, Wiltshire CCG chairman, said: “Every missed appointment is a missed opportunity for practices to see another patient.

"Between July and September that means practices could have seen another 15,500 patients, which is staggering.

"Simply by cancelling unwanted appointments, even if it is a few minutes before, it means that other patients have an opportunity to be seen more quickly and perhaps see their own GP.

"We were aware that most practices experience several 'do not attend' each day, but the volumes we are seeing are quite frankly, shocking.”

On average a GP will conduct 30 appointments per day.

Salisbury GP Helena McKeown says the missed appointments are understandable, pointing out that much of the problem lies with having to book GP appointments so far in advance.

She said: "There is a huge demand on GP appointments. If people are booking them two to three weeks in advance then by the time they get to it, they may no longer need it.

"However if patients have agreed to a text reminder they will get a reminder a day before and can then cancel it if necessary."

She added: "It's a symptom of a much bigger problem which is the demand on GP time.

"We are lucky to have a very old population now and all of us can expect to live a long time but there hasn't been the investment in preparation for this in primary care for GPs, community nurses, physiotherapists etc.

"We have much less of a share of NHS spending - it has decreased from about 12 per cent to eight percent in the last decade.

"That has impacted on our ability to provide care to patients resulting in a long wait for patients, it's understandable patients forget to turn up."

Richard Sandford-Hill, a GP at Market Lavington Surgery, said: “As doctors, we understand that people lead busy lives, that plans often change and quite often many people feel better by the time of their pre-booked appointment, so needing to change or cancel it is not a problem – please just remember to let your surgery know."