Patients failed to attend 8,000 hospital appointments in Mullingar last year

Patients failed to attend 7,756 outpatient appointments at Regional Hospital Mullingar (RHM) last year.

The figure accounts for 16 per cent of the 47,392 total appointments arranged there during 2023.

It represents a slight decrease from 2022, when patients failed to attend 17 per cent of the 42,078 arranged appointments.

The national average of appointments missed is 14 per cent, 513,000.

The HSE urge people to attend their appointments in Mullingar and if they can’t attend, to contact the hospital to reschedule at the earliest opportunity.

"This will enable the hospital to allocate the appointment to another patient and ensure that access to a service is maximised," they said in a statement to the Westmeath Examiner.

"With the ongoing challenges of providing access to care for patients in a timely manner, optimising capacity is a key focus, including managing the number of missed appointments.

"RHM (Regional Hospital Mullingar) provides patients with information regarding their appointment and the patient is contacted for their outpatient appointment by letter followed by a reminder letter just prior to their appointment."

The HSE also said RHM is currently looking to implement a text message reminder service to help reduce the high number of missed appointments happening.

In addition to ‘no shows’, there were 4,291 hospital appointments cancelled in RHM in the first nine months of 2023, according to figures obtained by Deputy Sorca Clarke. This represents a 98 per cent increase on the 2,169 cancellations recorded during the same period in 2023.