Attendance Policy

What is this page about?

This page has been written to give you the right information about our attendance and DNA (Did Not Attend) policy.

What do I need to know?

Norfolk & Waveney Community Health introduced a revised DNA policy in January 2018 which relates to the actions we will take if you cancel or fail to attend your scheduled appointment with us.

The following information relates to all scheduled appointments within the MSK Physiotherapy service including (and not limited to) face-to-face appointments, telephone appointments and class sessions.

What happens if you need to cancel your appointment?

If you are unable to attend a scheduled appointment, please call us on 01493 809977 and we will be able to help you re-schedule your appointment. If you use Airmid you can quickly and easily amend or cancel your appointments within the app. 

The more notice you give us, the better we are able to use your appointment slot for someone else.

If you cancel within 24 hours of your appointment, you may not be immediately offered another appointment, as your physiotherapist will need to review the reasons why you couldn’t make the appointment before deciding to offer another. We understand that sometimes things happen in life at the last minute that can’t be helped, so please do not worry about this part of the process.

What happens if you repeatedly cancel your appointments?

If you cancel your appointment more than once, you will not be automatically offered another appointment until your physiotherapist is able to review your attendance.

If your physiotherapist feels that you need ongoing input despite your attendance issues, you will be offered another appointment.

If your physiotherapist feels that your attendance issues are limiting how much benefit you are able to get from your rehabilitation, they will discuss this with you and may decide to postpone any future appointments.

What happens if you don’t attend your appointment?

If you fail to attend your appointment, you will have two weeks to contact us to arrange another appointment.

We will try and make contact you if you do not attend your appointment. It is likely that we will attempt to contact you by phone and/ or by SMS, email or through the Airmid app. We will try and contact you, as described above, on the day that you fail to attend your appointment and again approximately two weeks later.

If you have been discharged for not attending your appointment but feel you need more physiotherapy input, you will need to refer yourself again. You may not be offered an immediate appointment once you have referred yourself back into our service.

What happens if you repeatedly miss your appointments?

If you repeatedly miss your appointments after rescheduling them or referring yourself back to our service again, your physiotherapist will contact you to discuss your attendance issues and may choose to discontinue your physiotherapy. In this case, your GP will be contacted and informed that we have discussed your attendance issues with you and that any physiotherapy appointments must be attended if they choose to refer you to our service in the future.