HEALTH bosses in the region believe they may have the answer to a problem which is costing the NHS £162m a year.

Nationally, nearly nine million GP sessions are missed by patients who fail to keep their appointments.

But health bosses in Darlington say a US-inspired scheme, which concentrates most GPs at the period when demand is at its highest, has virtually eliminated the problem.

The key is to try to give patients an appointment on the day they ring up by ensuring that most doctors are working on Mondays and Fridays.

Darlington GPs are among the first in the country to adopt this way of working.

By early last year, four of the town's 11 practices had adopted the scheme.

Now the majority of practices run along the same lines.

Patients who did not keep appointments used to cost an estimated £1m a year in Darlington alone.

But after most of the 11 GP practices adopted a pilot scheme known as advanced access, that figure has been dramatically reduced.

The national figures were announced as part of the annual "Keep It Or Cancel It" campaign organised by the Developing Patient Partnerships charity and the Institute of Healthcare Management.

Apart from nearly nine million GP sessions being missed, just under four million practice nurse appointments are also missed every year.

The only good news in the figures is that the overall figure for missed appointments fell by about 3.5 million.

However, 60 per cent of GP practices in England still found it a problem.

Carole Harder, director of primary care with Darlington Primary Care Trust, said: "We were one of the first that tried this scheme and it is unusual to have most of our local practices on board."

Ms Harder said the lessons learned from the US approach to primary care management was to have the maximum resources available at the times of peak demand.

But Dr John Canning, a Middlesbrough GP who sits on the national GP committee of the British Medical Association, said he remained sceptical about the value of the initiative.

He said: "It seems to be denying people appointments in advance.

"I don't think it is the answer. The answer is about trying to persuade people that they have responsibilities."

Pam Prentice, a spokeswoman for Developing Patient Partnerships, said it was too early to say if advanced access was the solution.