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Evidence has shown that non-attendance at clinics occurs for a variety of reasons and impacts negatively on client outcomes and effective use of clinic resources. This paper reports an audit of non-attendance at Care Plus and diabetes clinics undertaken between October 2007 and October 2008, in a large general practice in the Wellington region.

A retrospective and prospective audit of the non-attendance rate at nurse-led wellness clinics was completed using the Query Builder function in Medtech32, collecting data from 142 people who did not attend a scheduled appointment.

Thirty-three people were unable to be contacted about their reason for not attending. Of those contacted, 68 did not attend because they were unaware of the appointment, confused regarding the appointment time, or simply forgot. Eighty-four people were aged …