To think a GP surgery shouldn’t have patients who are out of catchment

[Angryparent78]

If they are saying they can’t register patients who do live in the catchment. Just seen a post from a woman who lives at least four miles away from this particular surgery definitely isn’t in the catchment as stated by herself but has been told she can stay as long as I quote “numbers don’t get too high” now surely if they can’t take patients in the catchment numbers are already high and catchment patients should be their priority.

When I moved into London 20 years ago I couldn't register locally so my GP was out near my parents' house in Kent. I waited for 18 months to be able to register locally. A lot of flats had been built but the local services hadn't expanded to match.

This whole thread is a complete red herring.

The problem isn't out of catchment patients.
The problem is the shortage of doctors, nurses dentists and medical capacity.
Get angry about that NOT this innocent women occupying a space.

That’s our surgery in a different town. This GP is where we’ve lived for four years now she was with them a year before university. These one she can register with that people never stop complaining about.

No but if a gp is saying that someone could stay as long as number don’t get to high then letting them stay when numbers are high it’s unfair

Not only on dd but on others in the area

GP surgeries in your area are lucky that they can say "sorry we're full".

Where I work we are over full. But so is every other practice in our city. So all still have to accept new patients although we struggle to serve the ones we have. It's an area of loads of new builds adding pressure.

We do still have some out of area patients - but only because they were registered with us before catchment area changes.

Our GP allows some patients to remain registered if they move out of area as long as they agree to no home visits (as it is impossible for GPs to manage that within the time available)
I do sympathise with your problem but you can't expect them to throw others out when they may not be able to register with somewhere suitable for their needs, you don't know their medical history which the practice does

It may be the case that this particular patient was registered as an out of area patient before they decided to close their list. It’s up to the practice if they want to allow out of area patients, they’re not obliged to, but I do see your point , it seems a bit unfair they they can’t look after the patients who live within the local area yet they’re ok with keeping on people who live miles away 😒 It just depends on why they’ve allowed her to stay on though, she may be very ill or have a very complex medical condition, although having said that if somebody is very ill they usually encourage them to register at a practice close to home in case they need a home visit.

@Canigooutyet

Completely forgot about this. I live in an area that has a huge number of commuters working here. Education and health teamed up because locals were raising concerns that there was no spaces, yet in paper there was. Council tax bills were then requested from all parents and patients. We went from an area with waiting lists for alsorts, to locals could access these. A lot of people where using work address to get places. It's also why some areas do need catchment areas to prevent situations like this arise. Those who couldn't register had to rely on things like emergency dental services and walk in clinics.

It's also hard to tailor services for the needs of the local people if they cannot access services to begin with.

Registering out of area is legal, and makes a lot of sense in many cases.The people who work in the area are locals. They're spending more than half of their waking hours in the area, whilst at work. Almost all services and activities (not just GP related) where I live are for people who live or work in the area.

Most major hospitals do not cater only for 'locals', as in living in the immediate area.

NHS services are funded by national tax.

The need for more services and better funding is an issue, but it's not the fault of people who work in any particular area.

It's possibly not that easy to change GP if the nearer ones are full, though. And I don't think that the GP surgery can insist you change, anyway.

I'm out of catchment for my GP too. I have shared care for lupus, and requested when I moved that I stayed on. If I'd moved hospital records would have not have been accessible by my GP, and I'd had to have changed hospitals and consultants -after over 15 years trying to get diagnosed this didn't thrill me with joy. I'm also closer to my current GP, but in a different county because of where the county borders are. My GP agreed, I suspect partly because they have funding allocated for long term conditions.

There could be many reasons, many of which you may not be aware of. I can understand the frustration looking from the outside though.

I've been removed from my GP surgery's list for being out of the catchment area, despite being registered there for 30 years, having complex needs and a very happy relationship with my particular GP.

Because I had a baby, tried to register her, was told I wasn't allowed and that I also need to move. 3 days after I gave birth, find a new GP for yourself and no, you're not allowed to register your baby..

The catchment area had been put in place several years before and I had never known, just always attended my GP as normal!

We are 10 miles away - (it’s a half hour journey and in the next borough) from our doctors surgery.

I have been registered with them since I was a child. They are happy for us to stay with them even though they have a long waiting list of people trying to get on their books.

There are very good reasons to not be too prescriptive about catchment boundaries. Some patients have no permanent address, whether that's because they're in temporary accommodation or they are Travellers or live on narrowboats etc. Any policy requiring people to deregister every time they move risks meaning some vulnerable groups having zero continuity of care.

If your DD is registered with a GP near her university and will be going back she may be able to temporarily register with your practice for now, if their list isn’t open for permanent registrations. Temporary registrations are for people who will be in an area from 24 hours to 3 months.

A(nother) GP practice recently closed in our nearest town 5 miles away. We are lucky enough to have a GP practice in our village which is linked to another surgery in a town 5 miles in the opposite direction. As a result of the closure, all patients registered with our practice who don't live in the catchment were told to move to make space for all the people who lived in the town who were registered with the closing practice as the one remaining town practice wouldn't register them unless they lived in the actual town. Similarly, those registered with the 1 remaining town practice who no longer lived in town had to reregister elsewhere. As you can imagine there was a lot of movement of patients who had been registered with the practices for many years as they'd never moved out of the area. It caused a lot of upset for patients and I can only imagine a lot of admin work for the surgeries who were in the middle of running a GP led vaccine hub at the time.
My own DS is returning from his Uni city next week. I only hope he can get a place at our village surgery (where he was previously registered) as there is no alternative and his Uni city is a 4hr train ride away.

Given GPs don't do home visits unless you have a dispensation from the Pope, I don't see why catchments are a thing, but even if they do make home visits, 4 miles isn't far anyway.

There are three surgeries in my town and they have very tight catchments - it all seems a bit silly to me when I could walk to all of them in less than 20 minutes.

My mum was forced away from a GP surgery she liked and could get an appointment with because they tightened up their catchments and threw her out. Her nearest surgery is rubbish, of the "you can have a telephone appointment in three weeks" variety. But she sticks with them because they at least have an on-site pharmacist, so that side of things is efficient.

Our GP has a closed list but isn't removing people because it's basically the only surgery in a 10 mile area, the next nearest is in the city and there's only a bus every 2 hours so our GP keeps people on it's books if they don't live in the city.

They have reopened the list twice in 2 years for a few weeks at a time, both times during the school summer holidays so I reckon people move during them to take the numbers down so they can add people again.

They have also been made to take people even though the list is closed.

My old GP was 8 miles away because it was next to my work so I could go in my lunch hour as I could book appointments easily there. At the time my local GP only did sit in and wait appointments and I might not have made into work by 12pm. But I accepted I couldn't have home visits and if I was seriously sick at home I wouldn't have anywhere closer.
Unfortunately I was so ill once I couldn't move without passing out and couldn't make the journey to my GP and I ended up in hospital, I changed to the one next to my house after.

So you’re saying your daughter left your local surgery when she moved away to University (for 3 or more years) and has now returned home?

She’ll likely be treated as any other new patients moving into the catchment area if they’re already full.

Once you’re registered, it’s not easy for the GP to remove you from their list. I think focussing your annoyance on someone you obviously know who lives a little further out is a total red herring. It’s really none of your business why they want to stay with that GP.

If people stopped voting Tory, it would be a big help as they’ve done bugger all to help ensure the NHS is fit for the 21st century. What you need is more investment in local health services, not a move to a two tier system with easy access private healthcare for the wealthy.

Well it is easy to remove people from the list. As it’s their legal right to if you’re out of area as it happened to me and my family they gave us 30 days notice and that was that. Yes personally I do find catchment areas stupid but if they are going to have them they should really stick to them. As it’s likely it’s not just this woman out of catchment but others to therefore overloading the list. Which personally is quite selfish in my view.

@Angryparent78

Well it is easy to remove people from the list. As it’s their legal right to if you’re out of area as it happened to me and my family they gave us 30 days notice and that was that. Yes personally I do find catchment areas stupid but if they are going to have them they should really stick to them. As it’s likely it’s not just this woman out of catchment but others to therefore overloading the list. Which personally is quite selfish in my view.

It’s not selfish if they also can not get into their local doctors surgery because of waiting lists.

Reading through here it seems every surgery has different rules so that is the problem some seem to happy to have people out of catchment where as others are strict. If every surgery had the same policy then it wouldn’t be a problem.

Our village surgery is brilliant but neither of my 2 sons have been able to re register after having been away for uni. I would strongly advise people to think carefully about registering for GP services in their uni city. My kids never used the uni GP once and if they had become seriously ill, they would have come home.

They can get into them though these a number of them right near where this woman lives. She’s choosing not as that surgery the one in my catchment is one of the best in the town therefore it is unfair. If you’re that worried don’t move.

The surgery clearly state on their website if you move out of our catchment you must register with another doctor.