Forest of Dean doctors are backing a campaign to help reduce the number of missed appointments at their surgeries.

Last year alone there were 187,000 missed appointments in the county’s GP surgeries and hospitals, representing 30,000 hours of NHS time.

The ‘No Show’ campaign encourages people to call in to cancel appointments if they can’t make it. 

GP at the Brunston and Lydbrook Practice, Dr Sophia Sandford, said: “We know that even the best laid plans can change and appointments do need to be cancelled, but we would ask that patients call to let us know.

“This appointment could then be given to another person in need.

“As practices, we’re working together to help create more appointments at evenings and weekends to help give people more choice for when they visit the surgery to help fit in with busy lives.”

An extra 100,000 appointments for patients are being made available across the county’s 75 practices over the next year.

They will mainly be provided by GPs and nurses, with clinical pharmacists, parame- dics, mental health workers and physiotherapists also now working in local surgeries to offer a greater range of skills and services and freeing up GP time.

The NHS works hard to ensure any appointments which become free are given to someone else.

But if none of them freed up appointments were filled it would cost the NHS in Gloucestershire £13m a year.

BBC One Show GP, Dr Mark Porter, who has a practice in the county and grew up near Ross-on-Wye, has lent his support to the campaign by providing the voiceover for a series of videos which highlight the problem.

“We launched the first in December and it has since been viewed more than 125,000 times on social media.

“The second campaign film has now been released in a bid to reach even more people,” he said.

Added to the 125,000 missed GP surgery appointments in Gloucestershire last year there were more than 60,000 missed hospital appointments.

Dr Sean Elyan, medical director and consultant oncologist at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, added: “When people fail to turn up, it is a lost opportunity for another patient to be seen in a more timely way.

“If we could reduce the number of missed appointments, then we would be able to treat many more patients a year.

“Through improvements to our switchboard and our booking office, we have made it easier for patients to get in touch and change or cancel their appointments.”

To cancel a hospital appointment, patients should call the telephone number on their appointment letter which should get them straight through to the appropriate department, or email [email protected]