The policy #
One policy covers the whole clinic. Fill in the notice you ask for, the fees and how to cancel, then put the finished version on your website, in the booking confirmation and at reception, so every patient has seen it before their first appointment.
Click anything in brackets to type over it, then copy, print or download the result. Nothing you type leaves this page.
[Clinic name]: cancellation and missed appointment policy
Applies to private appointments from [date]. Patients seen under the NHS are covered by NHS rules instead.
Why we have this policy
Every appointment is time set aside for you that we cannot offer to anybody else. When an appointment is missed or cancelled at short notice, that time usually goes unused while other patients wait. This policy explains how to move an appointment, and what happens if one is missed.
How to cancel or move an appointment
| Phone | [Number, and the hours it is answered] |
|---|---|
| Email or online | [Address or booking link] |
| Out of hours | [Voicemail, email or online booking: say which counts as notice] |
| Notice we ask for | [24 hours, or another period] before the appointment |
Fees
| What happens | Fee |
|---|---|
| Cancelled or moved with the notice above | No fee |
| Cancelled with less notice than that | [£0.00, or a share of the appointment fee] |
| Missed without telling us | [£0.00, or the appointment fee] |
| Arriving too late for the appointment to go ahead | [Treated as missed, or another rule] |
The fee reflects the time booked for you that we could not offer to another patient. If we fill the appointment from our waiting list, we will [not charge the fee, or reduce it to £0.00].
When we do not charge
- The first missed appointment, when we will write to you instead
- Illness, an emergency or a bereavement that stopped you coming or telling us
- [Any other circumstance the clinic chooses to name]
If something like this happened, tell us. We look at every missed appointment before any fee is charged.
Deposits
[We do not take deposits. Or: we take a deposit of £0.00 to reserve appointments over a set length, which is part of the appointment fee and is refunded if you cancel with the notice above.]
How a fee is charged, and how to question one
We will write to you within [number] days of the missed appointment, saying the date, the fee and how to pay it. If you think it should not apply, contact [the practice manager, by name or role] on [phone or email] and we will look at it again.
| Policy agreed by | Name | Date |
The letter after a first missed appointment #
Most clinics write before they charge. This letter is a reminder of the policy, sent the first time somebody misses, with an easy way back in.
Click anything in brackets to type over it, then copy, print or download the result. Nothing you type leaves this page.
[Clinic name]
[Address]
[Phone number and email address]
[Date]
[Patient name]
[Their address, or send by email]
Your appointment on [date]
Dear [name],
You were booked to see [clinician name] at [time] on [date], and we were sorry not to see you. We hope everything is all right.
As this is the first appointment you have missed with us, there is no charge. Our cancellation policy, which you can read at [web address], asks for [24 hours’] notice to cancel or move an appointment, and a fee of [£0.00] applies to appointments missed without notice after this one.
To book a new appointment, call us on [phone number] or book at [booking link].
Yours sincerely,
[Name]
[Role]
The missed appointment fee letter #
For a later miss where the policy applies. It names the appointment, the fee and why, says how to pay, and leaves the door open for a reason you did not know about.
Click anything in brackets to type over it, then copy, print or download the result. Nothing you type leaves this page.
[Clinic name]
[Address]
[Phone number and email address]
[Date]
[Patient name]
[Their address, or send by email]
Missed appointment fee: [date of appointment]
Dear [name],
You were booked to see [clinician name] at [time] on [date]. We did not see you, and we did not hear from you before the appointment.
Under our cancellation policy, which you agreed to when you booked on [date], a fee of [£0.00] applies to an appointment missed without [24 hours’] notice. It reflects the time that was set aside for you and could not be offered to another patient. [We wrote to you about the policy on date, after a previous missed appointment.]
| Amount | [£0.00] |
|---|---|
| How to pay | [Card by phone, payment link, or at your next appointment] |
| Reference | [Patient or invoice number] |
If illness, an emergency or something else outside your control stopped you coming or letting us know, please tell us by [date] and we will look at the fee again.
To book a new appointment, call us on [phone number] or book at [booking link].
Yours sincerely,
[Name]
[Role]
What makes a no show fee fair #
A patient who books a private appointment is a consumer making a contract with the clinic, and the no show fee is one of its terms. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 sets three tests that matter here.
| Test | What the law says | What it means for the policy |
|---|---|---|
| Fair | Section 62: a term is unfair if, contrary to good faith, it causes a significant imbalance to the consumer’s detriment, and an unfair term is not binding on the consumer | The fee and the notice period are reasonable for the kind of appointment |
| Proportionate | Schedule 2, paragraph 6: a term requiring a consumer who fails to fulfil their obligations to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation may be unfair | The fee is set at the loss, not above it |
| Transparent | Section 68: a written term must be in plain and intelligible language and legible | The patient can read and understand the policy before they book |
Section 62 also says fairness is judged by the circumstances when the term was agreed, which is why the policy belongs in front of the patient at booking, not in a letter afterwards.
A cancellation charge is not fair just because it’s in the contract you signed – it needs to be reasonable.
Setting the amount
The CMA’s guidance says a business is generally only entitled to keep or receive an amount sufficient to cover its actual losses, that cancellation charges must be a genuine estimate of its direct loss, and that it must take reasonable steps to reduce those losses, for example by reselling the service. For a clinic that points to a fee based on the time booked, a smaller fee or none when the appointment is refilled, and a late cancellation fee below the no show fee, because a day’s notice is a day to offer the slot to somebody else.
If you take a deposit to hold longer appointments, the same guidance says a non-refundable deposit should only be a small percentage of the total price.
How to use it well #
-
Show it before the booking is confirmed
On the website, in the booking confirmation and at reception, and keep a record that it was shown: the fee letter says the patient agreed on a date.
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Repeat it in the reminder
A reminder that says how to cancel, and by when, is the cheapest way to turn a no show into a late cancellation. The appointment reminders guide covers what goes in one.
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Log every miss the same way
Date, patient, clinician, whether they called, whether the slot was refilled. The letter you send depends on all five.
-
Apply it consistently, with discretion
The policy says when no fee is charged. Decide the cases it does not name once, and write the answer into the policy.
What happens to it by hand #
The policy is the easy part. The work is what follows each missed appointment: somebody notices the empty chair, checks whether the patient called, looks up whether they have missed before, checks whether the slot was refilled, picks the right letter, fills it in, raises the fee and offers a new appointment. Most of that follows the same rules every time.
Runs on rules
- Spotting an appointment with no arrival, which is a time and a status
- Knowing whether it is a first miss, which is a count on the patient’s record
- Knowing whether the slot was refilled, which is the diary
- Filling in the right letter and the fee, which the policy already decided
Needs a person
- Deciding whether a reason means the fee is waived
- Deciding how to speak to a patient whose missed appointments are a clinical worry
- Deciding what the policy should say in the first place
What the published figures say about how often patients miss is on patient no shows, and offering a cancelled slot to the next patient is on rebooking and cancellations. The cost of admin time calculator puts a number on the hours your own reception spends on the loop above.