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Care Opinion

Thrown off GP list

Posted By joop2

"Thrown off GP list"

About: Bellbrooke Surgery

(as the patient),

I had been registered at Bellbrook surgery Leeds my entire life, at the beginning of this year I received a threatening and abrupt letter from them ordering me to see a doctor as I had not visited the surgery in a long time. Also, they threatened to throw me off if I didn't confirm my details saying that I had not replied to previous letters. They confirmed these were in fact optional screening letters which I am perfectly within my right to ignore. I was very concerned they were linking confirmation of details in this way. I contacted my local healthwatch about this. Shortly after this I was then thrown off their list.

The official reason given was that I am no longer in their catchment area even though I have never moved. Interestingly in contra to NHS guidelines stating that if this reason is given then everybody living at the household should be removed my partner has not been. I believe the real reason I have been removed is because I complained about them.

I lodged a formal complaint with NHS England but they just side with them. They did concede that communication could have been better, but these are just hollow words.

They said I was complex because I have been fortunate to enjoy good health so I have not had to consult a doctor and I don't do the routine screening, they also insultingly call me a non-attender.

As a result, I have lost all faith and trust in the NHS GP service and even though this is extremely detrimental to my health, I do not see the point of registering with another GP as this will probably happen again.

This has been an extremely stressful and anxious time for me, from a so-called caring organisation.

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Responses

Response from Andy Haigh, Business Manager, Bellbrooke Surgery 4 years ago
Andy Haigh
Business Manager,
Bellbrooke Surgery

Submitted on 05/07/2019 at 14:15
Published on Care Opinion on 10/07/2019 at 10:39

Hello joop2,

It is difficult to comment on individual circumstances but the practice have no hidden agenda and indeed it is generally in our interests to retain patient registrations, however we will be going through an exercise in due course to investigate the appropriateness of retaining any patients currently on our list but out of area as we do not believe we can provide a full service to these people. I would stress that this incident was not a part of any review as this has not started yet but is more likely to have been triggered by the issue of letters centrally (so not within the control of the practice) where it is relatively common for requests to remove patients to come through to us (not initiated by us) because no reply has been received and it is assumed the patient is no longer active on the list. In terms of current planning I believe there will shortly be pressure from the NHS for all practices to be more pro-active in removing patients where it is believed they remain registered but no longer in the area/active on the list. Other than people moving off our list because they are out of area we generally remove no more than 15/20 people per year and this is typically due to behaviour issues or frequent non-attendance of booked appointments. I can guarantee we have never removed a patient for simply making a complaint.

I hope this is useful

Kind regards

Andy Haigh

Business Manager

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