I’ve been kicked out of my doctors surgery!

[imusthavebrokenamirror]

I haven’t moved house for 20 years. Been registered at the same doctors surgery for 18 of those years. The surgery hasn’t moved premises.
The only thing that has changed is the number of new build houses that are being built between where I live and the doctors surgery.
Why should it be me that has to find a new doctor rather than the people buying the new houses? Why are they not building extra facilities to cope with additional people?

Apparently I am outside the boundary of a doctor who is 2 miles away, but within the boundary of a surgery 5 miles away??

The nearest surgery to me opens 4 hours a day for 3 days a week…the same 3 days that I am 15 miles away at work.

The only surgery I could possibly move to is the one 5 miles away, which is extremely awkward to get to due to heavy traffic, I would need to leave at least 45 minutes before the appointment time as it regularly take 30 minutes to drive into this town, then I would need time to try to find parking on the extremely small car park, give up, and park on the pay and display 10 minutes walk away.

Also there are regular complaints about having to wait over 10 days for an appointment because the receptionists decide you are not eligible for a same day appointment.

I know there is nothing I can do about it, but I am so mad at the moment having just read the letter telling me I won’t have a doctor this time next month through no fault of my own!

I'd put in a complaint to the surgery and to the health board. It really bugs me that so many expensive new houses can be built and the people that move into them are able to take over the local services. I had a disagreement with an acquaintance who is also a GP who said that I should be using a particular GP surgery because the one I was using was for 'her' area and was really oversubscribed. I've been registered with that surgery for 45 years - 30 years longer than her house has even existed - and it's closer and more convenient than the one she thinks I should be using.

I would definitely appeal. Not sure if you will be successful, but it's worth a try.

Contact your local Integrated Care Board.

www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/find-your-local-integrated-care-board/

Also...

Some info here...

https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/advice-and-information/2025-10-02/what-should-i-do-if-my-gp-removes-me-their-list

Our area is becoming a dormitory area for the nearest city. Unfortunately while they build housing estates they don't seem to bother with minor things like doctors, dentists, schools etc. As you mentioned the local GP can be an issue, ours has stopped taking new patients outside their area, which is drawn to exclude the new builds. People moving into the new estates are having trouble finding any nearby GPs accepting new patients outside their area.

The local schools aren't that big and with many of the new people bringing in young families it purs a big strain on their resources.

The last estate to be built talked off a new primary school, a shop and a pub. None of these appeared.

I would try and contact your local ICB. Practices can change their boundary but they aren’t supposed to remove existing patients.

The problem is that the government has arranged a deal whereby money for infrastructure like a doctors surgery isn’t released until the final house in a development is sold. If a development project is running over several phases, that can be years. It’s very badly thought out.

This was one of my gripes with the NHS. I dont understand why you can only have one doctor surgery. What happens if you want to see one near your work for example?

I'm in Australia. Use bulk billing doctors (free at point of use like NHS) but can choose which surgery l use.

@PrettyLittleRose Thanks for those links. I didn’t know about the IBC. I was going to put a complaint in to the Practice Manager but wasn’t expecting to get anywhere.
Will try a more formal route.

A representative of our gp practice actually attended a council meeting and stated they would Not be taking on any of the patients from the potential new builds.

See, this is what has surprised me. IMO the people in the newbuilds should be the ones who should go off to another GP surgery (even if their new house is a mile close than the OPs.) Existing patients should NOT be made to leave to accommodate new people ... Just because house builders decided to throw up another 500 newbuilds, people who have had the same GP Practice for YEARS, have to leave the Practice?! Fuck that!

If someone moves near the OP going forward then the practice can say no to them as they're full, and they can try the next closest, but the existing patients being booted out is disgraceful IMO.

Then again, I do think everyone should be able to get into their local GP at the end of the day. No-one should have to go like 3-4 miles or more when there's a GP practice 10-15 minutes walk away! This never EVER happened when I was growing up, (I'm in my 50s.) Indeed up to about 5-7 years ago, everyone got into their local (usually within 20 minutes walk) GP practice... In fact, if you moved house, even as little as 2 to 3 miles away away, you had to join the practice near your new home.

Problem is all these fecking 1000s of newbuilds. The market town 4 miles from me had 13,500 people when I moved here about a decade ago. Multiple 100s (running into 4 figures actually) of new homes have been built on the outskirts and there's now 19,000 people. A third more, in a decade.

Guess what though - no more GP practices, just the main one in town, no more NHS dentists, just the same 3 that the town has had for 15 years, and no more schools. Also no more shops ... In fact there are less. And no banks... They stick all these bloody 1000s of newbuilds up around various towns in the UK, but the infrastructure is the same, and the towns can't cope.

Did they actually say this was the reason? Or is it a boundary change?

Usually if they have a boundary change, patients who are already on the list are allowed to stay on it.

have you actually been to the doctor? I’ve heard of people who got letters removing them because they hadn’t been seen at the doctor for 20 years. I know the person who got this letter challenged it successfully.

This is ridiculous. I live out of the area for my GP surgery - there are at least 5 closer ones. I won’t bore you with the details of why I don’t want to move to a different surgery. I was asked to sign an out of area agreement and so you should just be able to do that! Complain to the surgery manager.

Write to your MP as well.

It might also be worth asking all your immediate neighbours to see if this has also happened to anyone else; and you could join forces to fight this arbitrary decision.

I didn't think GPs were allowed to do things like that any more. What @Itsa10fromLen said.

That happened to the estate near us too. I think they should be required the build those things first, before the houses.

There are occasions where GPs can off list people who are out with the practice area if it's changed by the practice.

We changed the boundaries to our practice about 8 years ago as so many new houses were being built and we simply couldn't cope the workload coming from all the new patients.

The health board said the only way we could remove our original patients who now were outside our area was to remove them all together so no one was discriminated against. They did talk at one point of moving groups of patients between surgeries to balance them up so each practice had patients closer to them. Previously practice areas had overlapped. Fortunately they didn't as the workload to re-register the patients would have been awful.

It's sometimes really hard to get the balance right. We were trying to maintain our sanity yet at the same time provide a service. It ended up every practice shut their lists so noone in the area could get a GP.

They could have built new surgeries along with the new build houses but there weren't any GPs to work in them! It was a horrible time for everyone. This is Scotland so slightly different rules here.

The whole ‘GP’ ‘registered’ thing is entirely outdated now with online AI and electronic notes.
Should just have walk in centres 24/7 for minor injuries and ‘GP’ services.

That's annoying OP. When a large new development was built near me the local GP was expanded to take more people as a condition of it being built. (An extension was built on the GP building)

Well the NHS is falling apart. DH was urgently referred 8 months ago. I called them to chase it today and it’s just… not happening apparently. He can’t work, or even watch TV. But their bookings are on hold. So they aren’t going to help him.

Really sorry to hear that.

Am I understanding correctly that because bookings are on hold, he's not on the waiting list?

Instead of trying to improve medical access, Labour put their efforts into faking the waiting lists. They are liars and gaslighters.

This is bullshit. I work in the NHS and there is clear steady improvement. I've had two friends referred for cancer pathway process in the last couple of months in different parts if the country, one of them twice for two different issues and in all 3 cases they were seen and given the all clear within 3 days.

We'd all like it to be faster but it's going in the right direction. I'm my 28 years, the NHS has only ever been properly supported by Labour.

We have something like that here in Australia there called urgent care centres they can do gp stuff blood tests ,x-rays and stitch you or plaster they were opened to free up the hospital for more serious cases 😊

Get your local MP involved

I'd been at the same doctors surgery until I was 25 in the village where I lived as child. We moved 10 mins away when I was 7 to be closer to the hospital as I was ill as a child, still remained at that village GP for a further 18 years. I moved in with my (now) husband at 25, literally round the corner from my family home, updated my address at the doctors whilst ringing to book in for my first smear, and they kicked me out, despite the fact I'd technically lived outside their catchment for 18 years! I had a few choice words and made them book me in for my smear test before finding a new doctors!

Email your local MP