Huge cost of missed medical appointments as South Tyneside Council blames ‘forgotten’ bookings

South Tyneside Council’s occupational health service provides service and support to the local authority, schools and academies.

It consists of an in-house team including 1.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) occupational health nurses, 1 FTE occupational health nurse technician, 2 FTE administration officers and 1 FTE occupational health support apprentice.

External support is provided by occupational health physicians (doctors), counsellors, and physiotherapists.

The occupational health physician services contract has recently been through a tender exercise and was awarded to the current provider, Occupational Health and Wellbeing Ltd in February 2025.

A report to the latest meeting of the council’s people and organisational development committee outlined from October 2024 to June 2025 there were 204 missed appointments with a doctor or nurse from the service, including “health surveillance” sessions.

Based on an average of £130 per appointment, this meant the cost to the service of the missed consultations was approximately £26,520.

Council chiefs outlined how “significant work” is ongoing in order to reduce the volume of employees who fail to turn up for their scheduled medical appointments.

Suzanne Bell, HR advisory and occupational health manager, speaking at the meeting, said: “Not dissimilar to lots of things you see in the news around the NHS, about people who don’t attend for appointments, we have the same problems.

“We have to put significant work into that, certainly around how to ensure that everybody where possible will turn up for their appointment.

“As you can see there is a huge cost that’s attached to that.”

She added to address this they are working with employees and managers and looking at a “diary solution” which will see appointments go into the online diaries of both managers and employees.

The meeting heard at the moment letters are sent out, which are followed up immediately with a phone call on the day to try and understand why people haven’t attended.

Officers noted anecdotally that “nine times out of 10” the individuals have either forgotten or are out somewhere working.

Ms Bell added: “We’re trying to look at how we actually ensure that their diary is blocked out so they attend occupational health appointments, plus some other work.

“That’s what the plan is going forward, that we start to work on planning to get to the appointment, whereas at the minute we’re working after the appointment has been missed, which is not that hugely effective.

“We’re doing probably a little bit like what the NHS do when they follow it up, but it’s a bit too late at that point in time, they’re just not there and the appointment has gone, which is why we’re putting some work in place to try and prevent this in the first place as much as possible.”

Labour’s Cllr Susan Traynor stressed missed appointments are “a cost to the organisation” and highlighted the importance of putting measures in place so people attend.

She added: “Really the diaries need to be cleared to allow them to actually attend that appointment because it’s for the best reasons.

“Obviously for their health reasons, and obviously we don’t want the organisation to spend money that we don’t need to.”

Council reports outlined how within the team the doctor will deal with the more complex medical referral cases as determined by the nurses who will triage all referrals.

The doctor will also see those who have declared a condition on their pre-employment screening, and again those that have been determined as complex by the nurses.

In total from July 2024 to June 2025 there were 763 doctors appointments compared to 739 for the same period in 2023-2024.