MORE than one in four people in the West Midlands have missed an NHS appointment because they forgot or arrived too late, according to a new survey.
The NHS has launched a new campaign urging people to turn on ‘push alerts’ from the NHS App so they get reminders about appointments and can rearrange any they can’t make, helping to free up millions of appointments for others.
Of those who had missed an appointment in the West Midlands, 13 per cent forgot and 13 per cent arrived but were too late.
The latest appointment statistics also show that patients did not attend 16million GP appointments in 2025, with no shows for one in 23 appointments – the equivalent of an entire day of missed appointments at every GP practice in England each month.
The figures also reveal that the NHS arranged 37 million appointments at GP practices in 2025 – 8.4million more than in 2024.
The new ‘Tap the NHS App’ campaign is highlighting the benefits of enabling notifications, with adverts appearing on pharmacy bags, radio channels and social media.
Users are also being encouraged to cancel or rearrange their appointments through the app and to use it to request repeat prescriptions instead of having to visit their GP practice.
Last year, the NHS rolled out a new Amazon-style prescription tracking feature in the NHS App which updates users on the progress of their prescription and when it is ready to be collected. It is currently available at 2,000 pharmacies across England.
Trish Thompson, director of primary care, NHS England-Midlands, said: “With one in four patients in the West Midlands saying they’ve missed a GP appointment in the West Midlands, it’s more important than ever that patients who are using the NHS App enable their notifications from their GP, so they don’t miss out.
“The NHS App helps you quickly and easily request your repeat prescription. And if you turn on notifications, you’ll get messages and appointment reminders as soon as they’re sent.
“The app also helps GPs whose staff will spend less time answering calls for renewals at 8am every morning.
Dr Amanda Doyle, national director for Primary Care and Community Services at NHS England, said: “People will often have genuine reasons for not being able to make an appointment or arriving too late, but it’s really important that they let us know if possible so we can offer the appointment to someone else.
“One of the easiest ways you can reduce the risk of missing an appointment is by tapping the NHS App to turn on notifications to get reminders, so you can cancel or rearrange them if they need to.
Latest ONS figures show that people are increasingly preferring to contact their GP online when they have a health problem.
Three-quarters of adults found it easy to contact their GP practice, up from 71.6 per cent a year ago.
The NHS App has over 40million registered users, who are able to view their GP health record, order repeat prescriptions and access a range of NHS services to manage their own care.
