It was sad to read in the Echo that £3m of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by patients of DCH not turning up for their appointments. The NHS jargon is DNA: did not attend.

For four years we campaigned for improvements to the Dorset pain service. Despite the excellent but overstretched medical staff, many patients just did not bother to turn up or contact the hospital, preventing other sufferers from being treated.

I believe these thoughtless hundreds of ‘patients’ should be referred immediately back to their GP.

Maybe the shame of facing their own doctor, who had put them forward for specialist care, will reduce this scandalous waste of resources.

For some people the idea of a health service, that is effectively free, means that they can take the NHS for granted and abuse it.

Colin Smith Weymouth