YORK Hospital has launched a new text message service to remind people about their outpatient appointments.

People are being urged to sign up for the service, which will mean they receive text message reminders giving them the option to confirm, cancel or reschedule an appointment.

The service is aimed at easing outpatient waiting times by reducing missed appointments.

Steph Holloway, Patient Access Improvement Manager at the York Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, said: “Over a 12 month period up to July this year, 64,857 patients failed to attend their first or follow-up outpatient appointments at one of our hospital sites - at an approximate cost of £136 per appointment.

"Patients do not attend their appointments because they have either unintentionally forgotten the date, or failed to inform the Trust that they no longer wish to be seen. This can result in an unnecessary delay, or an unfilled clinic appointment which could have been offered to another patient."

In addition, a new online form for patients has been launched to make it easier to reschedule or cancel outpatient appointments - and helping the hospital to fill empty appointment slots.