evidence: Published data shows that of 124.5 million outpatient appointments across the NHS in England last year, eight million (6.4%) were not attended by the patient. It is estimated this level of missed appointments has an annual cost to the NHS of £1.2 billion. Figures for last year also show the highest proportion of missed appointments were physiotherapy – with more than one in 10 appointments marked as DNAs (11%) – followed by cardiology (8.9%), ophthalmology (8.8%), and trauma and orthopaedics (7.9%). [...] Over the first 12 months of the pilot 53,800 texts were sent – based on a benchmark non-attendance rate of 19.27% they expected 8,581 missed appointments, but through this initiative just under 6,500 patients were recorded as "was not brought" during the year. Almost 200 more appointments were attended each month as a result of this work.