What causes people to miss healthcare appointments and what we can do about it in Dorset?
Thanks to funding from NHS Charities Together via Dorset County Hospital Charity in association with Dorset Community Foundation, Public Health Dorset (PHD) worked with Community Action Network on a project to collect community insights into:
- The barriers and drivers that prevent people from attending healthcare appointments (recorded as ‘Did Not Attend’ or DNAs in NHS systems)
- What people think can be done to address those barriers.
This is important because access to healthcare is a key driver of health inequalities and the unfair, avoidable differences in health that exist between different groups of people. Missed healthcare appointments contribute to this and working to reduce them can form part of our approach to tackling health inequalities in Dorset.
Why did we do this project?
Regularly missing NHS appointments can lead to poorer health outcomes, as individuals may not receive the necessary support at critical times. It’s essential for patients to attend their scheduled appointments to ensure they get the care and advice they need to maintain or improve their health.
However, we know that the reasons people miss appointments can be complex and, for some people, attending their appointment is more challenging than it is for others:
Perhaps transport is difficult for them
They have caring responsibilities
Maybe their mental health makes it difficult for them to get to their appointment
This project set out to build a better understanding of who in Dorset is more likely to miss their healthcare appointments, the barriers and challenges they face that cause them to do so and what they think can be done to address those barriers.
Who did we work with?
Home-Start Wessex
Volunteers lead and facilitated engagement activities with families with young children including families affected by poverty.
Poole Communities Trust
used creativity to stimulate conversation and engagement from the communities of Bourne, Branksome, and Turlin Moor. They worked with a local illustrator to create powerful imagery highlighting the barriers and challenges they explored.
CoCreate Dorset CiC
worked with individuals in Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Weymouth with poor mental ill health through Forum Theatre, a structured performance method that encourages active problem-solving.
Christchurch Community Partnership
worked with the BU PIER (Public Involvement in Education & Research) Partnership using their community researcher model to upskill volunteers to enable them to facilitate and lead engagement activities with older people with poor mental ill health and/or mobility issues.
