One in 12 first appointments at Cheshire hospitals in the past year saw patients fail to attend.

In the year to September, patients missed 8.6% of first appointments at the Countess of Chester Hospital (8,161) and Mid Cheshire Hospitals (7,466), which includes Leighton in Crewe and the Victoria Infirmary in Northwich.

The number of missed first appointments at the Countess was up 19% since the year to September 2014, while missed follow-up appointments were up 7.3%.

In the year to September, patients missed 19,126 first appointments at hospitals in Cheshire, as well as 41,259 follow-up appointments. Patients also failed to turn up for arranged admissions on 692 occasions.

The number of patients failing to turn up for arranged hospital admissions has hit its highest level since 2010.

Leighton Hospital's new-look main entrance
There have been more than 7,400 missed appointments at Leighton and Mid Cheshire Hospitals in the year to September

Patients failed to turn up 121,782 times for arranged admissions to hospital in the year to September 2015, a 9% rise on the 112,244 times in the previous year.

This was the highest number of missed admissions since at least the year to September 2010.

More than one in eight (12.4%) of arranged admissions at The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in London in the year to September 2015 were missed by patients who failed to turn up, the worst rate in England.

Across England, patients missed 5.5m first and follow-up appointments at hospital trusts across the country in the year to September 2015.

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The number of first appointments where patients did not attend rose from 1.62m in the year to September 2014 to 1.71m in the following year. The proportion of first appointments that were missed has also risen from 8.7% in the year to September 2014 to 8.8%.

One in six first appointments at Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (15.6%) were missed by patients, the worst rate in England.

The number of follow-up appointments missed has also risen slightly, from 3.72 m to 3.8m.

The data comes from NHS England’s hospital activity figures.