THE figures in our story about missed appointments at Oxfordshire hospitals are eye-opening.

In the last year alone more than 35,175 appointments were missed at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

That’s the equivalent of nearly 100 every day, for an entire year, or one every 15 minutes.

While these missed appointments only cost about £10 or £15 each in lost resources, added up they total more than half a million pounds.

Over the next year OUH must make £49m of savings, part of a four year, £160m savings plan.

The NHS has never faced cuts of this scale, and there is no guarantee that they won’t ultimately lead to fewer doctors and nurses on the ground, and poorer services.

So the less money we lose by simply failing to turn up at a pre-arranged time and place, the better.

It looks like the trust is beginning to get to grips with the problem, with about 7,000 fewer appointments than the year before.

But there is still clearly a long way to go. Simply put, this is not money we can afford to waste.