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Fri 05 May 2007Less than 50% of outpatients availed of appointmentsFewer than half of the people who were offered "first-time" consultant appointments last year by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) actually had consultations, according to the organisation's annual report.Under the NTPF pilot outpatient programme, almost 18,000 people on waiting lists to see consultants in 25 public hospitals around the country were contacted. But only 6,732 people attended for appointments offered to them by the NTPF. Hospitals co-operating with the pilot programme supply the contact details of patients on their consultant waiting lists to the NTPF, which makes contact with the patients and arranges consultations in private hospitals.