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Increasing initial attendance at mental health out-patient clinics: opt-in systems and other interventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

David S. J. Hawker
David S. J. Hawker*
Affiliation:
North Oxfordshire Child and Family Clinic, Orchard Health Centre, Cope Road, Banbury, Oxfordshire OX16 2EZ, email: [email protected]
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Out-patient appointments which are missed without prior notice are a major contributor to wasted resources in planned mental healthcare services. It is not unusual that a quarter to a third of patients referred to a service will miss their first appointment (Hoare et al, 1996). Non-attendance rates for second and subsequent appointments are lower. Early non-attendance predicts attrition later in treatment (Goode, 1997; Aubrey et al, 2003), leading to further wasted resources, with most first-time non-attenders never attending subsequent appointments.

Type
Special article
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 31 , Issue 5 , May 2007 , pp. 179 - 182
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2007

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