Doctors are to consider proposals to charge patients for missing GP appointments. The British Medical Association will decide whether to back plans that would introduce charges. Under the plan, patients could be charged a flat fee of up to £25. The proposed fee is seen as an incentive for patients to turn up to appointments and a way of helping to fund cash-strapped doctors’ surgeries. Missed GP appointments reportedly cost the NHS up to £160 million a year. However, health campaigners have described the plan to deter patients from failing to turn up to surgeries as ‘profiteering from the most vulnerable’.
