Hospitals: Admissions
(asked on 21st January 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many planned outpatient admissions expressed as a total number and as a percentage of all outpatient admissions were a) cancelled by hospitals and NHS authorities, b) cancelled by patients and c) cancelled because patients did not attend in each of the last three years.
Appointments cancelled by hospitals or other National Health Service authorities do not appear in statistics as completed appointments. For admitted patients, the Department does not hold data on the cause of cancellations or where patients did not attend their operation.
Data on the number of last-minute cancelled operations is published by NHS England. Last minute means on the day the patient was due to arrive, after the patient has arrived in hospital or on the day of the operation or surgery. It does not include cancelled operations before the day of the operation. Data is available by year and quarter and includes the number of cancellations and the percentage these represent of total elective admissions. This is available at the following link, within the ‘Time Series’ report:
For outpatient appointments, data on cancellations and patients that did not attend their appointment is published by NHS England. Data is available by year and includes the number of cancellations, whether these were hospital or patient cancellations, and the percentage these represent of total elective admissions. This is available on the following link, within "Hospital Outpatient Activity, 2024-25: Report Tables":