GP practice limited frequency of blood tests that patient claimed were necessary

What happened

The practice discovered that Mrs J had had more blood tests than clinically necessary, and it had not requested some of these. The practice restricted Mrs J's access to blood tests by making sure that they could only be carried out with permission from either of the two senior GPs or the practice manager, and could only take place at the practice.

A locum GP at the practice told Mrs J that she needed a blood test, but reception staff refused to organise this because there was no permission from one of the three nominated members of staff. There was an altercation with reception staff, but the locum GP gave Mrs J the blood test form and her blood test went ahead. It was not clinically necessary.

When Mrs J complained, the practice refused to respond until she provided a written explanation for what the practice called her unacceptable behaviour towards reception staff and the practice manager.

When the practice responded (after discussion with us), it did not fully explain its decision. It said staff had decided to restrict Mrs J's access because it had received a telephone call from the local polyclinic that said that Mrs J had presented two blood test request forms with the same bar code. It also said that, when staff contacted Mrs J's consultant at the local Trust, he agreed that the number of blood tests she was having was clinically unnecessary.

What we found

The practice's decision to restrict access to blood tests was reasonable but it failed to give Mrs J a full and accurate explanation.

Reception staff and Mrs J gave different accounts of the incident when a locum GP had requested a blood test. We were unable to reach a firm conclusion on this issue.

The practice had unreasonably delayed its complaint response making this dependent on Mrs J offering a written account of her behaviour.

Finally, while reception staff had on the one occasion initially refused to organise a blood test, this was not unreasonable because the appropriate permission had not been given and the test was not clinically necessary.

Putting it right

The practice apologised to Mrs J for the manner in which it had handled her complaint.