One in 12 disabled adults miss a GP visit over transport
Published 9 July 2026
One in 12 disabled adults in New Zealand missed a GP appointment in 2023/24 because of a transport problem. That is a finding from a new report by CCS Disability Action, which begins to count the cost of journeys that never happen.
Missing an appointment is rarely just an inconvenience. It can mean a health problem goes unmanaged, a cost lands on a household, or care becomes more expensive later. Until now, almost none of that cost has been measured in New Zealand.
The report, ‘Costs of journeys not taken: framing the issue’, aims to develop a way of measuring the journeys disabled people do not take because of accessibility barriers. The work was funded by a grant from Kinetic's Moving Communities Fund.
The report takes a focused approach. It works through one everyday example: a missed GP appointment. That single journey shows how the wider issue can be framed and costed. It is described as a first step, setting the scene for more detailed work.
What the report found
The report draws together New Zealand data, overseas research, and accounts from disabled people. Three findings stand out.
First, disabled people were three times more likely to miss a GP appointment than non-disabled people. People living in more deprived areas were more likely again. The people most affected are those who already have the fewest transport options.
Second, missed appointments carry a measurable cost to clinics. A missed appointment costs a GP practice about $49 in wasted staff time. There were 159,000 missed GP appointments in New Zealand in 2023/24, with transport the most-cited reason. International research suggests around 15% of missed appointments are mainly caused by transport. On that basis, the report estimates the cost to clinics at roughly $1.2 million a year.
Third, that figure is only the part we can see. Most of the wider costs have never been counted.
The costs that go uncounted
A missed GP visit does not end at the clinic door. The report sets out a chain of flow-on costs that current research has not quantified.
Health needs that could have been managed early can escalate. Medication is delayed. Mental health can suffer, along with people's sense of connection to others. When one adult in a household cannot travel, carers absorb the load, and some people lose time at work or study.
The most expensive costs come last. When primary care is missed, problems can grow until someone needs specialist or hospital care instead. One person told the researchers how that plays out.
"I have missed many many chances at an appointment with my GP," they said. "I cannot afford the taxi to get there. This has pushed my health to a point that requires an Emergency Ambulance and admission to hospital. Avoidable if I could get to my GP."
The report notes that these compounding costs are real and probably large, but no one is adding them up.
Why one missed taxi stops a whole journey
The report describes a barrier it calls having "no redundancy" in a journey. For many disabled people, a trip to the doctor is a chain of steps, and every step has to work.
A non-disabled person can take the stairs when the lift breaks, walk an extra block, or drive if a taxi doesn't show up. Many disabled people have none of those backups. If one part of the journey fails, the whole trip fails. The report cites earlier work describing how some people "cancel a trip in their head." They weigh up everything that could go wrong before they even set out.
For some, the barrier begins before the appointment is even booked. The report cites one such example: "For some it's so difficult to ask for the help early. Even before the appointment is made. Making an appointment by themselves and arranging transportation sometimes too hard."
Others described transport that is simply unreliable. "I have nearly missed hospital appointments because I have booked a taxi then it doesn't show up," one person said. Another explained the daily uncertainty of an impairment that impacts differently depending on the day: "Some days I'm unable to walk to the bus stop. Taxis don't reliably pick up where I live because they worry they're driving to the edge of the area for a small fare."
The cost that falls on households
Cost runs through many of the accounts in the report. Even with subsidies, the price of getting to care can be high, and it lands hardest on people who often have the least income.
One person who is deaf, low vision, and uses a power wheelchair explained what a single trip can take. "A hospital appointment including the total mobility discount is $70 each way. That makes a publicly funded hospital appointment $140 for me to attend," they said. "My condition requires multiple health appointments every single year and they're just getting more and more expensive."
Another person, who cares full-time for a partner with a brain injury, described a similar squeeze. "I do have a Total Mobility card but even with the subsidy multiple hospital and doctor visits can add up to over $100 a week some weeks, and that's not even including the doctors' fees," they said.
For some, the cost simply means the appointment does not happen. "I've missed doctors appointments and mental health appointments because I could not afford taxi costs even with discount," one person said.
What the report recommends
By working through a single, familiar journey in detail, the report shows why this way of framing transport exclusion is worth pursuing at a larger scale.
Its main recommendation is more research, focused on four questions:
What are the main barriers within a public transport trip that stop a disabled person travelling by bus?
Would more accessible travel information at key destinations, such as GP clinics, help people make more journeys?
Are there international examples of transport and health services working together?
Are we regularly checking what disabled people need from their bus journeys?
The report argues that better data would help agencies decide where investment in accessible transport does the most good. It notes that the one cost it could define, the $49 to a clinic, is already many times the price of a return bus fare. The longer-term aim is a way of measuring transport exclusion that decision-makers can use to plan more inclusive transport across New Zealand.
Raewyn Hailes, Regional Access Coordinator at CCS Disability Action, says the report helps explain a pattern the organisation sees often.
"People are not missing appointments because they do not care about their health," Hailes says. "They miss them because getting there is too hard, too unreliable, or too expensive. By looking closely at one everyday journey, this report shows what that costs, not just for disabled people, but for the whole system. It is a strong case for measuring the bigger picture."
With thanks to Kinetic
This report was made possible by a grant from Kinetic's Moving Communities Fund. Kinetic's focus on connecting communities through accessible, reliable transport aligns closely with the questions this report sets out to answer, and its support has enabled CCS Disability Action to begin measuring a cost that has gone uncounted in New Zealand.
"We're grateful to Kinetic for backing this work," Hailes says. "Funding that helps us understand the journeys disabled people cannot take is an investment in a fairer, more inclusive transport system for everyone."
Download the full report (PDF 665KB)
About CCS Disability Action
CCS Disability Action is the largest pan-disability support and advocacy organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand.
We support people with all types of impairments and have been working alongside disabled people since 1935.
We are at the forefront of service provision, advocacy and information sharing in the disability sector. We partner with disabled people, their families and whānau to enable them to have choice and control in their lives. Our vision is to see every disabled person and whānau hauā interwoven into the lives of their whānau and community.