A medical practice in the Halton area

5. Miss A complains the Practice sent her a warning letter about her behaviour on 1 August 2019. She said she felt this came out of the blue and that the description of her behaviour was not accurate.

6. She told us that the Practice referred to things that did not happen in the call. She also complains that the Practice referred to several incidents of poor behaviour but refused to share information about this.

7. As a result, she feels her reputation has been damaged. She says she experienced shock, and her blood pressure rose, when she read the letter. Miss A told us her carer had to make her lie down as she was so unwell. She explains she was diagnosed with a heart condition a few months before and needed to avoid stress.

8. She says this has impacted her sleep and ability to live a normal life. Miss A also explained that the issue spoiled her birthday plans.

9. As an outcome, she wants an apology for the accusations she feels the Practice made about her. She explains she wants an acknowledgement that statements made about her behaviour were untrue. She also wants service improvements for the receptionists.

10. On 12 June 2019, Miss A called the Practice and spoke with the receptionist as she was having issues using the prescription application on her phone.

11. On 1 August 2019, the Practice wrote to Miss A saying it felt her behaviour during the calls was unacceptable. When she wrote to them to challenge this accusation, it responded on 14 August saying there were several occasions where her behaviour was inappropriate.

Letter and complaint handling

15. Miss A says the letter that the Practice sent to her on 1 August 2019 came out of the blue and that the description of her behaviour was not accurate. She said the second complaint response also referred to things that did not happen in the call. She explained it referred to several incidents of poor behaviour but refused to share any further information.

16. The Practice wrote to Miss A on 1 August 2019 and said that she was derogatory, obnoxious, and verbally abusive during her 12 June 2019 call to the Practice. It said this behaviour was not acceptable.

17. We contacted the Practice on 9 September 2021 to give it the opportunity to send us any evidence it wanted us to consider by 23 September. It missed that deadline and failed to respond to us. We contacted the Practice again on 30 September to ask if it had anything further to add but it did not respond.

18. Our Principles say that public bodies should be open and truthful when accounting for their decisions and actions. They should explain their criteria for decision making and give reasons for their decisions.

19. We listened to the telephone call Miss A had with the receptionist. She was having difficulties using the online prescription service and the receptionist asked questions about this and tried to assist her. The receptionist said the issues with the website were outside of their control. They said there might be an IT department, but they were not sure.

20. They suggested that Miss A come into the Practice to order a repeat prescription. Miss A sounded upset and said she would struggle to find time to do that. She emphasised that she needed her medication. She said she had to come into the Practice the day before and could not keep wasting time like this.

21. Miss A agreed to go into the Practice and asked them what information she needed. She was advised to go to the front desk and request a prescription. The receptionist asked if this was okay. Miss A said it was not okay. The receptionist said they could not do anything further as they were not trained to deal with prescriptions. They then asked if there was anyone who could help. The receptionist asked her to wait a moment and the recording ends.

22. Another receptionist then took over the call. They asked some questions to try to find out what the problem was. Miss A said it took her 30 minutes trying to fill out the form. The receptionist did speak over her, asking what she was trying to order. She said that she was signed out. She said she did not want to put in a request over the phone. The receptionist said that the app was not theirs and that Miss A needed to get help from Patient Access.

23. Miss A also said that this would impact her birthday plans. She thanked the receptionist, and the call was ended.

24. We appreciate that whether a person’s behaviour is acceptable or not is a subjective consideration. However, we consider that it is possible to give consideration as to whether someone has made verbally abusive, obnoxious, or derogatory comments. Having listened to the call recording the in full, there is no indication that Miss A made verbally abusive, obnoxious, or derogatory comments to either of the receptionists she spoke to. This matches Miss A’s recollection of the call.

25. We expect the Practice to be open and truthful when writing to a patient about their behaviour. It appears the Practice either did not listen to the recording before writing to Miss A or mispresented how she communicated in these calls. The Practice have not shown us any evidence that Miss A made the alleged comments or that her behaviour was ever poor.

26. This means the Practice has failed to uphold the standard of using evidence to account for its decision making. We have therefore found that it has failed to comply with our principles, and we have looked to see if this had an impact on Miss A.

27. Miss A says her reputation was damaged and her blood pressure rose when she read the letter. She said her carer had to make her lie down as she was so unwell. She explains she was diagnosed with a heart condition a few months before and was advised to avoid stress. She said the Practice knew about this and these events also impacted her birthday plans.

28. The Practice have recognised no impact on Miss A.

29. We appreciate that Miss A would have felt her reputation had been damaged as an unsubstantiated allegation was made about her by the Practice. We were not there at the time she received the letter, but it is not unreasonable to think this could have caused her shock and stress. We also accept this would have spoiled her day. We have therefore seen a linked impact and will look at whether this has been remedied below.

30. Miss A told us she wants an apology for the accusations the Practice made about her. She also wants an acknowledgement that the statements made about her behaviour were incorrect, as well as service improvements for the receptionists.

31. We thought carefully about the impact and concluded that we cannot see a link between the receptionist’s handling and the letter from the Practice manager. Therefore, we cannot see a need for the receptionists to have further training in relation to their role.

32. Our principles say it can benefit the public body as well as the complainant, by showing its willingness to:

· acknowledge when things have gone wrong · accept responsibility · learn from its maladministration or poor service · put things right.

33. Our Principles say that public organisations should be customer focused and should apologise for any maladministration or poor service. In line with this, we asked the Practice to write to Miss A.

34. The Practice should acknowledge that the statements made about Miss A were not accurate and that it will take learning from this complaint for the future. The Practice should also apologise to Miss A for the distress these events have caused her.

35. We contacted the Practice, and it has agreed to write to Miss A. We consider this to be enough to put the matter right. We thank Miss A for her patience while we considered her complaint and hope she is satisfied with the outcome.

1. We would like to thank Miss A for bringing her complaint to us about a medical practice in the Halton area (the Practice). We are very sorry to learn about the events that led to her complaint and how this has impacted her. We recognise this was very distressing.

2. We have carefully considered Miss A’s complaint about the Practice. We have decided the Practice can take steps to put things right at this stage.

3. We listened to the call and found no evidence of the poor behaviour the Practice described. We also asked it for evidence of the other instances of poor behaviour and it could not provide any. We think this means something likely did go wrong with the Practice’s handling of this matter.

4. We can see that these allegations caused Miss A upset and stress. We cannot imagine how difficult it would be to have an organisation say you had behaved poorly when you had not. We have asked the Practice to write to her acknowledging this and apologising for what went wrong. The Practice has agreed to write to Miss A, and we think this is enough to put things right.