Non-attendance in general practice: a systematic review and its implications for access to primary health care
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Non-attendance in general practice has received increasing attention over the past few years. Its relationship with access to health care has been recognized and is of particular relevance in light of the access targets set out in the NHS Plan. METHODS: The literature was searched for articles relating to non-attendance. Titles and abstracts were examined, and relevant articles obtained. Bibliographies were examined for further references. Articles that described interventions for reducing non-attendance that were comparative studies and that examined general appointments, as opposed to appointments for screening purposes for example, were of particular interest. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The epidemiology of non-attendance has been well described, but there is little work on the reasons for non-attendance. Evidence for effective interventions to improve attendance in primary care is lacking, and this may prove to be an area of research interest in the future. As well as specific interventions to reduce non-attendance, new approaches to health care access are required in order to tackle this issue.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Appointment systems are a threat to permeability by socio-economically disadvantaged people because they require resources and competencies including stable addresses, being able to read, and being able to present in particular places at particular times.
“Appointments systems, for example, are a threat to permeability by socio-economically disadvantaged people because they require resources and competencies (including stable addresses, being able to read, and being able to present in particular places at particular times [33,50,54]”
From Conducting a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature on access to healthcare by vulnerable groups (2006) · cites this paper as [50]
Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredServices that are less permeable tend to have high levels of default by socio-economically disadvantaged people.
“Services that are less permeable tend to have high levels of default by socio-economically disadvantaged people [50-53].”
From Conducting a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature on access to healthcare by vulnerable groups (2006) · cites this paper as [50]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 48 · Cited by 246
Research works printed but not linked: 5
- Woodcock EW. Managing your appointment 'no-shows'. J Med Pract Manag 2000; 15: 284-288.
- Palmer KT. Practice matters. In Notes for the MRCGP, 3rd edn. Oxford: Blackwell Science, 2001: 1-67.
- Bloch TP. Patients' preferences for appointment or non-appointment surgeries. Br J Gen Pract 1991; 41: 518.
- Wilkinson M. Effecting change in frequent non-attenders. Br J Gen Pract 1994; 44: 233.
- Craighead I. Practices in UK are working harder, not more efficiently. Br Med J 2001; 323: 804.
- Authors
- George, A., & Rubin, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Sunderland (GB)
- Corresponding author
- George, A.
- ORCID
- Rubin, G.
- Venue
- Family Practice
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2003-04-01
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 178-184
- ISSN
- 0263-2136 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2229
- OpenAlex
- W2163081728
- Cited by
- 246
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 1.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Family Practice (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Emergency Medical Services › Healthcare Operations and Scheduling Optimization
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Primary Care and Health Outcomes
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare
- Keywords
- non-attendance, general practice, primary care access, appointment attendance, reasons for non-attendance
- MeSH terms
- Appointments and Schedules, Family Practice, Health Services Accessibility, Humans, Patient Acceptance of Health Care, Reminder Systems
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
