"The general public should not have to feel that they are up against a brick wall to get care"

Dear sr13

Thanks for contacting Care Opinion. I am very sorry to learn your husband has been so unwell and I hope he is doing much better. I can clearly sense your frustration in trying register your husband at various GP practices. I am sorry to learn of this.

I respond in relation to your contact with NHS 24. I see a call to us, during the Out of Hours period, resulted in arrangements being made for your husband to be assessed face to face. If you care to share any further information with us in relation to your call to 111 then I would be pleased to hear from you. You can call me on 07814 299944 or email Patient.Experience@nhs24.scot.nhs.uk

Thanks again for sharing your experience which I appreciate sounds hugely frustrating.

With best wishes to your husband for a full and speedy recovery.

Kind regards

Shona

Dear sr13,

Please see the below response from Clair Ross, Primary Care Support Manager:

'Thank you for sharing your concerns with us. We were very sorry to hear about the issues your husband had with accessing his GP, especially at a time when he was feeling so unwell. It would be helpful to know which Practice he was previously registered at so we can feedback your concerns.

GP Practices cover specific boundaries within their postcode areas and you are entitled to re-register with a new GP Practice should you move outwith the postcode boundary of your current Practice, however, the GP Practice should not have refused to treat your husband solely on this basis. If you have moved a significant distance away, this can become difficult should a patient require a home visit but is not insurmountable in these circumstances until your husband managed to register elsewhere. If it had been a long period of time since your move and your husband was no longer registered at his original Practice, Practitioner Services are available to support patients with accessing a new GP Practice. They can be contacted by telephoning 01224 358447 or emailing nss.psd-gmsaberdeen@nhs.scot Your husband’s original GP Practice should have advised you of this and provided you with their contact details.

Whilst the transferring of full medical records does take some time, Practitioner Services can ensure a patient summary is provided to the new Practice which outlines medication history, recent illnesses etc. which is adequate to treat a patient, especially in an urgent situation like this. This may have been due to a reduction in usual Practice staff over the holiday period, which was very unfortunate but should not reflect normal Practice.

There has been a significant increase in demand on GP Practices along with a declining number of clinical staff with either staff retiring or leaving the service all together. This has been further compounded by the increase in population and the number of new patients trying to register. As a result, in Aberdeen City, we have supported some Practices by giving them some ‘breathing space’ to close their lists to new patients on a temporary basis whilst they try to recruit additional staff. Whilst this can be frustrating for new patients wishing to join a particular Practice, we are hopeful these short term measures will support our Practices to remain open in the longer term.

Thankfully, your husband managed to access the treatment he needed and is hopefully feeling much better but we appreciate how frustrating and time consuming this was when he was clearly unwell and requiring medical assistance.

I hope this reassures you that the experience your husband had is not the usual level of service that patients should be given and we are working with Practices and patients to support them through these challenging times. If you would like to share which Practice your husband was registered with previously, we can share his experience with them to ensure this doesn’t happen again to anyone else. Please contact the Primary Care Team by emailing gram.primarycaresupportachscp@nhs.scot.

Take care,

Clair'