Health Secretary Wes Streeting has failed to rule out slapping fines on patients for missing NHS appointments in the future.
Mr Streeting previously rejected the idea outright but he appeared to soften his stance, saying he could be “open-minded” to it if his plans to reform the NHS don’t fix the issue. Around 8 million appointments are missed each year, which costs the health service around £1billion.
Asked whether he would introduce financial penalties for no-shows, he told TimesRadio: “I want to fix the reasons why the NHS causes people to miss appointments and improve the way in which we are able to choose and book appointments and then keep people updated.”
Asked if he was ruling it out, he said: “At this stage it’s not something I’m looking at doing, but once we’ve got the system working effectively, if we still have this problem of missed appointments then I might be more open-minded.”
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He said GPs are frustrated by missed appointments but they don’t want to deal with the added bureaucracy of administering fines to people who don’t show up.
Before the General Election, Mr Streeting argued that fines would be a “slippery slope” towards charging for the NHS. Writing in the Times in April, he said: “Charging patients for missed appointments may be superficially attractive but it can’t be justified for a number of reasons.
“I worry that fines are a slippery slope. The Conservatives have long wanted to introduce charging for the NHS. The former health secretary Sajid Javid recently advocated for patients to be charged to see a GP or go to A&E. There are many things wrong with the NHS, but the fact that you never have to worry about the bill is its biggest strength.”
He said the blame for missed appointments often lies with outdated ways the NHS communicates with patients, adding: “The NHS should get its own house in order before dishing out punishments to patients.”
Rishi Sunak suggested finding patients £10 for every missed hospital and GP appointment during his Tory leadership bid in 2022, but abandoned the idea after a backlash.
It comes as Mr Streeting insisted he isn’t pushing a “dystopian” plan to force overweight unemployed workers to take weight loss jabs.
The Health Secretary said a new trial to test the effectiveness of injections to get people back to work could be a “game changer”. But he said weight loss jabs were not the only solution to obesity – and no substitute for changes to diet and exercise.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Streeting said: “I’m also not interested in some dystopian future where I wander around involuntarily jabbing unemployed people who are overweight. That is not the agenda.
“Actually, I think we’ve got an opposite challenge. I think demand at the moment will be greater than what we’re able to meet. So that’s the challenge we’ve got. But this could be game changing, and if we can throw the trends we’re seeing in obesity into reverse, that’s better for the health of the nation.”