Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the cost of missed appointments across the NHS, and of the impact of requiring two forms of ID from patients not resident in the UK on this cost.

Information on the cost of missed National Health Service appointments is not collected centrally.

We welcome trusts piloting schemes whereby they ask NHS patients for two forms of identification to demonstrate their identity and residency status. We will consider further the impact that identification checks have, including the effect on costs identified and recovered from people not eligible for free NHS care.