Missed hospital appointments cost €22m - could have paid for 1,000 extra staff

Missed outpatient appointments possibly wasted €22m of health service money last year, new figures from one of the country’s largest hospitals have shown.

The chief executive of the Cork University Hospital (CUH) group, Tony McNamara, said the so-called ‘do not attends’ (DNAs) created a “significant waste of scarce resources” which could have financed 1,000 clerical or administrative staff.

He called for a public-awareness campaign to stress to people the value of outpatient appointments, and the knock-on cost of not attending them.