Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many did-not-attends and drop-outs from appointments occurred in GP practices in (a) Barnsley and (b) England in each of the last 12 months.

NHS England does not currently hold information on the number of patients who did not attend general practitioner (GP) appointments on either a local or national level. NHS England has directed NHS Digital to gather this information as a part of a new national collection of GP workload information. This collection will begin shortly.

NHS England has not issued guidance on minimising missed GP appointments. This is tackled on a local level as GP practices are best placed to understand the needs of their patients.