Missed appointments at Bradford and Airedale hospitals are costing the NHS more than £5.5million a year, even though patients have been given a choice about where they are held.

The number of missed app-ointments has risen by almost one per cent in the past year to 45,449 in Bradford NHS Trust hospitals, costing £4.58million.

And 9,939 patients failed to turn up to appointments held by Airedale NHS Trust, costing £993,900, according to Govern-ment figures.

Bradford and Airedale PCTs hope attendance at hospitals will improve with the introduction of a new scheme which offers patients even more decision-making power.

Already 56 GPs' surgeries are using the Choose and Book scheme to help patients pick the time and place of hospital referral appointments. The PCTs hope that, by October, the majority of surgeries should be using the system.

A spokesman said: "It is hoped that by being actively involved in booking a time and date for their hospital appointment patients will have less reason for non-attendance.

"Across the district more than 6,000 referrals have been made via the Choose and Book system, with more than 600 patients having their appointments booked at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust."

Dean Johnson, director of planning and performance at Bradford Hospitals, said a new administration system would also help reduce the figures.

He said: "Reducing the number of missed appointments is one of our key objectives.

"We hope in future to make further progress, with the launch of a new patient administration system which makes the bookings. This new system, which should be online over the next 12 months, should make it easier to track patients and issue reminders. Whenever someone fails to turn up for an appointment it has an impact on other patients who could have been seen instead.

"We understand sometimes patients miss appointments for unavoidable reasons, but we urge them to do all they can to attend or give notice that they need to rearrange the time."

A spokesman for Airedale NHS Trust said: "These figures are put into context with more than 80,000 out-patient attendances, 50,000 therapy attendances and 23,000 elected admissions."

Department of Health res-earch has found patients forgetting about their appointments resulted in two out of three absences.

And about a quarter said they had felt better and decided not to go, but did not cancel their appointments.

e-mail: rebecca.wright @bradford.newsquest.co.uk