Turn Up or Tell ’Em, says Shadow Health Secretary (From Daily Echo)

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley backs Echo hospital appointments campaign

2:21pm Thursday 21st January 2010 in Health

Andrew Lansley

SHADOW health secretary Andrew Lansley has backed The Daily Echo's 'Turn Up or Tell'Em' campaign to cut the number of missed hospital appointments.

He spoke out in favour of our drive that could help save your local NHS millions of pounds during a visit to Southampton General Hospital.

The MP, who could be in charge of health if the Conservatives win the next election, said he was pleased to support the campaign.

"I think missed hospital appointments are potentially a very big problem.

"People should take responsibility for turning up or cancelling their appointments.

"But hospitals themselves need to be sure that they have the mechanisms in place for contacting people about their appointments.

"Large numbers of people now use texts and there are systems where you can have text prompts and so on and we should be using that."

Both Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital and Southampton General and Princess Anne Hospitals, which have all backed our campaign, use text reminders.

Mr Lansley's backing comes after The Daily Echo revealed that around 5,150 patients are failing to turn up to their hospital appointments across our region every month.

Over a year that number of missed appointments - known as Do Not Attends - costs the NHS around £6.1m in wasted valuable resources including medical and administrative staff's time.

During his visit to Southampton General Mr Lansley toured the emergency department, paediatric intensive care unit, children's cardiology and saw for himself how the new £50m children's hospital is progressing.

He said he fully supported the development of the children's hospital and was "really pleased" with the progress.

"Southampton General is one of the leading teaching hospitals in the country. I have had lots of contact with many of the clinicians here and it is very important from my point of view to get a clear picture of the progress that is being made."

Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust Chief Executive Mark Hackett said: "We are continuing to improve our patient services to improve patients' experiences."

Afterwards Mr Lansley visited Southampton's newly opened Adelaide Health Centre on the Western Community Hospital site.

* For a copy of our poster for your hospital department, GP surgery, walk-in centre or health centre call Clare Kennedy on 023 8042 4500.