Dads not allowed to register children with GP?

[CherriesInTheSnow]

Hi, posting here partly for traffic, partly because I'm unsure where else to post and mainly because a Google search has yielded no useful information.

I work full time, OH is a SAHP to our 21 month old girl. Today he gathered all of the necessary documents and took her to register at out local GP in the area we have recently moved to.

They have a system where you can only bring in registration forms for a few hours in the afternoon, fair enough. However when he got there, the receptionist informed him that "although it sounds unfair", only the mother can register the child at the GP and this is the case everywhere?

Is this true? It seems very silly and sexist to me, OH has his name on the birth certificate which he took with him along with his own I.D to cross reference with the name on the bit certificate. I can't understand why he is less able to do this fairly straightforward task on his own, just because he is the male parent?

It is problematic for me as well as I have used up nearly all of my leave, the rest has been booked for the rest of the time before my maternity leave for DC2 starts in October. I also am on consultancy care so I already have a lot of extra appointments and soon scans to take time off for, so am feeling a bit resentful towards this.

I guess the AIBU bit, if I need one, is AIBU to think this lady is fibbing or is it genuine law that only mothers can register children for medical care. Thanks :)

I suspect this is a misunderstanding or else a reaction to some kind of nightmare co-parenting shitstorm that the surgery have faced and not quite thought through the resulting policy. Definitely your dp should ring the practice manager to find out how he can get this sorted.

For what it's worth the things people request surgeries get involved with in the name of parenting disputes are astonishing. This surgery may have had an issue with a parent without pr registering the child and it's all kicked off. I've had separated parents ask that someone from the surgery rings the other parent every time a non-resident parent books an appointment, every time the resident parent orders (or doesn't order) a repeat prescription, they've asked to see the notes once a month to check what the other parent is up to. You really wouldn't believe it if you didn't hear it firsthand. As I say, OP's surgery has clearly got something wrong here, but it may be a case of all parents suffering because of a few pillocks.

Yes, you can register 'out of catchment' if the practice has spaces and is willing to take new 'out-of-catchment' patients - in fact, when DH registered DC1, it was at my registered surgery to which I'd moved after appalling treatment at our 'catchment' one. He was still at the old one on the grounds he never uses a doctor anyway so didn't matter if it was a bad one, but agreed that DC1 should be registered with my good one.

So, DH registered DC1 without me, at a practice that was not one of our nearest two, at which he was not registered, without a problem. They did ask for both parents' full details, so that they could link to my file but add him to emergency contacts (he was already an emergency contact for me anyway) and also they asked him for his NHS number, though from what I know - and I wasn't there, obviously, and all a bit hazy anyway - that was just to sit in the notes on DC1's file 'in case', in case of what I don't know.

I work in a gp surgery and have never heard this providing the parent registering is a patient at the surgery they can register there children and I'm in north london

What rot. My DD's next door neighbours are 2 Dads wonder what this person would do with them! And my DS has a friend whose wife died in childbirth. All sorts of scenarios.

Weird. As a nursery manager I once took a 20 month old to an emergency appointment (with mums phoned and faxed consent for my own records) she was very poorly and clearly in need of treatment and mum was an hours commute away. We collected the prescription just as mum arrived and the chemists closed. I found it strange at the time that no one queried it at the health centre although I did explain to the Dr who I was in relation to the child and asked him to complete our sudden illness form in the follow up section. I had a collegue with me too.

Definitely get DP to follow up.

Slightly off topic but not! I was working away when DS was 3 and he got tonsilitus OH took him to see a GP and all over my DS medical records (which I saw over the GP shoulder) it says Mother working out of country. Father attended appointment unaccompanied!!! Really only added this to show that GP surgeries are stuck in the dark ages!!

So interesting to hear everyone's experiences.

I do agree it could have been from a misunderstanding and maybe told OH that it was common practice to avoid questions?

I will bring it up because rightly so like all of your I feel it is patronising to fathers, not to mention making it very awkward for people who have non traditional family units.

Back in the stupid days before 2002 unmarried fathers even with name on birth certificate were not allowed parental responsibility unless they went to court and got some form filed. However that changed as it was a stupid rule. It leaves my brother with PR for one child and not for another (too lazy to get PR sorted). For his first child he cannot sign medical consent forms or see her school reports etc

DP and I were in this situation (some kids born before 2002, some after), but the process for registering parental responsibility is so simple it's definitely worth your brother doing it. It's not like 'going to court' in the traditional sense, just that the form you have to complete has to be taken to a court to be registered. A five-minute job, literally, and so worth doing in case anything happens to his DP.