[Margaret Pilkington]

I used to manage the Gynae Pre-op Assessment Clinic....if patients failed to attend this clinic then they didn't come in for their op........but I used to phone women and ask them why they had not turned up for their appointment...sometimes it was because they had moved house...or they had not had their letter to come to the clinic. Very often I would make alternative arrangements for them to come up and get their appointment...sometimes even doing their pre-op assessment on the ward.

Women do have very busy lives and although that does not excuse them from missing appointments.....I felt that anything that I could do to make it easier to attend and get our'failed to attend' figures down was worth the effort. I always encouraged the staff that worked with me to do the same.
Our clinic ran from lunchtime until 9pm at night...just so that women didn't have to miss time at work.