Are patients' attitudes the cause of long waiting lists?

Abstract

This paper studies the rate of non-attendance for both out-patient clinics and in-patient care. It relates this to the waiting times for both services. If all patients who did not attend clinics had informed us beforehand, thus enabling us to give their appointments to other patients, the out-patient waiting time could have been reduced from six months to one week. If a similar approach was taken with the in-patient waiting list, the waiting time could have been reduced from 15 months to nine months.