Purpose

Harley Street Medical Centre is committed to ensuring that the best possible service is provided to all patients registered within the practice.
This policy relates to the handling of DNA’s and outlines the expectations of patients and staff in the management of these instances.
Failing to attend booked appointments has a negative impact on the practice staff and its patients in the following manner:

• The ‘DNA’ patients take the appointment slot for another patient who could have attended. The effect of this is increased waiting time for appointments.
• The time and personnel required to follow-up and rebook DNA patients diverts practice staff from other duties and is therefore a waste of resources.

By all of our staff (clinical and non-clinical) being consistent in applying the DNA policy, this encourages patients to assist in ensuring that clinics are managed as efficiently as possible and reduce the amount of wasted appointments throughout the surgery.

Responsibility

It is the responsibility of Harley Street Medical Centre staff to make every reasonable effort to ensure that the patient is aware of their booked appointment.
Every effort will be made to communicate effectively with all patients including those with language, literacy, vision and hearing difficulties. The practice will exercise discretion on a case-by-case basis to avoid disadvantaging patients in the case of genuine hardship, misunderstandings and other unavoidable circumstances.
It is the patient’s responsibility to:

• Advise Harley Street Medical Centre staff of any changes to their contact details and change of address.
• Attend their arranged clinic appointment or reschedule/cancel with reasonable advanced notice.
  Policy

1. In the event that a patient DNA’s their appointment for the first time then the appointment will be recorded as DNA in the patient records and our practice staff would ring or send this letter to the patient.
2. If a patient DNA’s a second appointment within a 12 month period, they will be sent the letter for a second time and, again, will be recorded on the patient records as a second DNA.
3. If a patient DNA’s their third appointment within a 12 month period, they will be sent a final Harley Street Medical Centre DNA warning letter and could possibly result in the patient being expected to find an alternative GP practice.

Any further DNA appointments after the third will result in a letter being sent to the patient informing them that they have been removed from the practice list.