THOUSANDS of hours of medical time are being wasted because patients are failing to cancel unwanted appointments.

The equivalent of two doctors' working weeks are been thrown away every seven days in Darlington because patients do not turn up.

Darlington is not alone in having a problem. Based on the latest figures which show that 1.9 million GP appointments are missed in the region every year - The Northern Echo has calculated that the region would have the equivalent of an extra 107 GPs if every appointment was kept.

Doctors' leaders in the region warned that unless things change, patients could be fined for missing appointments.

Darlington Primary Care Trust ordered a survey of DNAs (did not attends) at the town's 11 surgeries, where 61 doctors reported no let up in a problem that has troubled the health service for years.

In October alone, more than 1,700 doctor or nurse appointments were missed.

An average consultation lasts ten minutes but medicals, such as those required by lorry and taxi drivers and insurance companies, take twice as long. This means that last month close to 300 hours were wasted - the equivalent weekly hours of two full-time doctors.

Chief executive of Darlington Primary Care Trust, Colin Morris, said: "Clearly, it is a priority for people to be able to see a doctor when they need to. But with this level of wastage, patients in Darlington are being put at a disadvantage."

The result to the public at large is longer waiting times to see a doctor. It is also calculated that a missed appointment costs taxpayers £50, representing in financial terms a monthly wastage of £85,000 in Darlington alone.

Dr George Rae, spokesman for the British Medical Association in the North-East, said: "We have tremendous capacity problems within the NHS and we have fewer GPs in the North-East than in many parts of the country.

"It is making a bad situation even worse if people are not turning up."

While he is personally opposed to "fining" non-attenders, he said the longer the problem continued the more it played into the hands of those who wanted charges.

A Department of Health said spokeswoman said: "We have no immediate plans to charge patients for missing appointments.

"However, this is one of a number of options that could be considered once the planned system of booked admissions for hospital treatment has been introduced in 2005."