MORE than a year of GP time is lost across Oxfordshire due to patients missing their appointments.

Although the problem, known as Do Not Attends or DNAs, costs the county's NHS at least £217,000 a year, doctors are against fining or striking off patients who fail to turn up.

According to health education charity Developing Patient Partnerships (DPP), there are 114,486 missed GP appointments across Oxfordshire every year.

Each appointment is about 10 minutes long, leading to a 795-day waste of time - equivalent to the annual working days of three GPs, who on average earn about £72,400 a year.

Although a DPP survey showed three quarters of doctors across South Central Strategic Health Authority would like to strike off regular DNAs, and two thirds would like to charge patients for wasted time, practices in Oxfordshire were more sympathetic.

Geoff Price, practice manager at Blackbird Leys Health Centre, in Cowley, Oxford, said his seven GPs experienced about 100 missed appointments every month.

He added: "We put posters up every month saying how many lost appointments there've been. I don't think our patients take much notice. We would never strike off or fine a patient because we have about four DNAs a day, and that compares with 150 patients who do turn up every day."

Dr Prit Buttar said since he had been a partner at Abingdon Surgery in Stert Street, Abingdon, the number of missed appointments had grown. He said: "It can be very irritating, especially when you know the patient has done it on a regular basis. But it's important to keep it in perspective. I probably have fewer than one a day.

"If patients do it more than three times we send them a letter telling them not to waste our resources.

"But it would be a nonsense to fine people when they can see us for free in the first place."

Dr Tia MacGregor, of St Clements Surgery, Oxford, said: "It's awful that so many appointments are being missed - about the equivalent of three GPs. They're a problem and there's a debate about charging people for not turning up, which most doctors - me included - don't think is right.

"Because our service is free people think there's no value, and to some extent that doesn't help the problem."

Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, which oversees GP surgeries, urged patients to contact their practice if they wanted to cancel an appointment.

PCT deputy director of commissioning and head of elective care Emma Tidy said: "We'd encourage everyone to phone in advance to cancel, thereby bringing down the number of missed appointments and enabling more appointments to be made available for patients."