Policy for missed & late appointments

Strand Medical

Last updated: 21st August 2026 MM

Every effort should be made to notify the practice if a patient cannot attend an appointment. Ideally notify the practice 24 hours in advance, to enable this consultation to be used by another patient.

Strand Medical acknowledges that patients occasionally might miss an appointment, through sickness or other reasons. Missed appointments can be unavoidable and will never impact the care you receive here.

However, on some occasions repeated ‘DNA’ (did not attend) appointments can significantly impact the service for the entire practice and other patients. If a patient DNAs (did not attend) an appointment, this means that other patients in the practice miss out on getting an appointment. For this reason the following policy has been made:

For private patients

• A DNA may mean that consultations will have to be paid at booking in the future - before the appointment happens.

For GMS / DVC patients

• Repeated DNAs may mean that certain times cannot be booked - Dr Irene and Dr Mark will contact you.

Late appointments

• We cannot guarantee that you can be seen if you are late for your appointment.