GP practice unfairly removed family from its patient list without warning

What happened

Mrs B received a call at home from her GP Practice manager who wanted to speak to her daughter who was also a patient at the same Practice. Mrs B said that this breached her daughter's confidentiality because her daughter does not live with her.

The Practice manager was concerned about Mrs B's abusive behaviour on the telephone and told her that if she was unhappy with the service provided, she should consider registering at another GP Practice. The Practice then wrote to Mrs B giving her 30 days to find a new GP Practice.

Mrs B said this caused her to suffer from depression. She said it is a 10 mile round trip to visit her new GP Practice, which is inconvenient for her to get to. She was also unhappy that her husband was removed as a patient.

Mrs B also complained about how the GP Practice handled her complaint. She believes the investigation was conducted by the Practice manager, the person she complained about.

What we found

The Practice failed to give Mrs B a warning about her behaviour. The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) Regulations 2004 say that a patient should be warned before they can be removed from the patient list. The Practice also removed Mrs B's husband who played no part in the events complained about.

This failing resulted in an injustice for Mrs B as she was not given the opportunity to change her behaviour. This meant she had no option but to register at another GP practice which was inconvenient for her to attend.

There were no failings in the Practice's complaint handling. NHS England dealt with Mrs B's complaint and initially asked the GP Practice to investigate. This investigation was not done by the Practice manager but a senior GP within the Practice.

Putting it right

The Practice wrote to Mrs B, acknowledging the failings in how it dealt with her and her husband's removal, and apologised. It paid Mrs B £300 in recognition of the injustice she suffered.

The Practice developed an action plan detailing how it will improve its handling of patient removals in the future.