Choosing and booking—and attending? Impact of an electronic booking system on outpatient referrals and non‐attendances

摘要

Abstract Patient non‐attendance can lead to worse health outcomes and longer waiting times. In the English National Health Service, around 7% of patients who are referred by their general practice for a hospital outpatient appointment fail to attend. An electronic booking system (Choose and Book—C&B) for general practices making hospital outpatient appointments was introduced in England in 2005 and by 2009 accounted for 50% of appointments. It was intended, inter alia, to reduce the rate of non‐attendance. Using a 2004–2009 panel with 7,900 English general practices, allowing for the relaxation of constraints on patient of hospital, and for the potential endogeneity of use of C&B, we estimate that the introduction of C&B reduced non‐attendance by referred patients in 2009 by 72,160 (8.7%).