Summary
Ms A requested that her first appointment with a new medical practice be longer than usual. Ms A was late for the appointment, and when the GP refused to see her she became upset. She wrote a letter about the situation while she was in the practice but this was not responded to. Within a few days she was informed that she had been removed from the practice list.
Ms A's representative (Ms C) complained to the practice on her behalf. They replied, saying that their views about the length of the scheduled appointment, how late Ms A had been and the behaviours she had displayed were different from those of Ms A. Ms A was dissatisfied with their response and raised her complaints with us.
We decided that the practice had reasonably fulfilled a request for a prescription and passed Ms A's records to her new practice. However, as they had not met the requirements of the relevant regulations for the immediate removal of a patient from a treatment list, we upheld Ms A's complaint that her removal had been inappropriate. We also upheld Ms A's complaint that the practice did not respond reasonably to complaints submitted about this matter.
Recommendations
We recommended that the practice: apologise to Ms A that her removal from their practice treatment list was not appropriate; review their procedure for the removal of patients from their treatment list to ensure that it complies with the relevant regulations, guidelines and guidance; apologise to Ms A that they did not respond reasonably to her letter; and review their complaints procedure to ensure that it is in line with the NHS Scotland complaints procedure.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201200239 as a PDF (13.44 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018