Kicked out of doctors surgery

[13Pattina24]

I have been a patient of the same surgery for the last 46 years, from the day i was born, for 25 of those years i have been outside the catchment area for new patients...however, recently my last doctor (2nd 1 i've had in my life) has retired. A month in and the new doctor is kicking me out because i am 2 miles outside the catchment area (same as the last 25 yrs). My mum, dad, 3 of my brothers, sister in law, all still at this surgery - i have gynae issues going back 27 yrs, my 1st brush with cervical cancer when i was 17, i've had several brushes since then - i don't want to change to a new surgery that knows nothing about me or my family history!

As i am all too aware from the past, family history n your GP being able to make connections, makes a massive difference. About 10 yrs ago, me n 1 of my brothers were having the same issues with our stomachs, during 1 appointment when i was getting test results back, my GP said to me, your Darren's sister, aren't u, my answer, 'yes i am', her reply was ' your results show, you have......can you please tell Darren to come in for the same tests,' turned out he had same as me - if it wasn't for the family connection, it coulda took a lot longer to work out what was wrong with him.

My current surgery is a village surgery but it is quite big, non the less, i if i have to move, its to a town surgery, where you never see the same GP twice, i know this because 1 of my brothers made this mistake and he is never done complaining about not being able to get an appointment, never sees the same GP, booked up for 2 weeks at a time, etc etc, definitely not what i want with my past medical history. Can somebody please help me and tell me how, without having to move house, can i stop them kicking me out? Any suggestions at all will be appreciated, thank you

You’ve been on their books for the last 25 years as an “accidental administrative oversight”. The new doctor isn’t having it and now you need to move to a surgery in your catchment area.

The new GP will have your medical history and you can inform them of any relevant family history.

Your old GP was incredibly lax discussing your brother with you. Huge breach of doctor-patient confidentiality and GDPR.

Just move GPs. They will have your notes/ history. They shouldn’t be discussing other patients anyway, family or not.

The problem is when you need health professionals for home visits, you live out of the area and it creates extra work. They have to draw the line somewhere, they don’t have unlimited capacity.

I would stop using the "kicking you out" language it's melodramatic. If you and your brother were experiencing same symptoms and you were diagnosed with something it's safe to assume you would have told him the diagnosis and he would have mentioned to Dr to be tested for this condition anyway?
Your Dr has retired so you are going to have someone new anyway who is to say you will like them

That’s a good point about home visits. Even if the nice GP who kept you on agreed to home visits, which they must do for their patients who need them, what about district nurses, or others?

Your GP has left, the new one wouldn’t know about family connections etc. Your notes will move with you.

This happened to me , so I told them I live back at my old address , not ideal but everything is communicated via email and online so it works for me, I didn't want to change to where I live now as it not a great surgery.

I understand how you feel as I had the same issue with my gp. I moved a couple or miles up the road, but my new postcode meant I was out of area, which I assume is to do with their funding. My gp was nice enough to keep me on for a few months to get my longterm condition caught up with medication, and then I transferred. Your notes go with you. Your gp sees thousands of people, so won't remember exactly each person's needs, they will always have to refer back to previous notes.

Can you register your postal address as that of your mother's?

Same happened to me. I've moved twice since and changed Doctors. They're all good practices. All your details get sent over to the new practice.

People move to new surgeries/countries/continents with the most unbelievably complex medical histories. Their notes go with them, and they have new GPs and consultants, and life goes on. It sounds like you think you’re a bit special, and I think this is the crux of it. There is no good reason you should get to break the rules and everyone else have to follow them. You are catastrophising a completely mundane thing.

Also @Timeforaglassofwine is right. Good doctors make you feel like you’re known by them and your details remembered, but it’s usually an illusion. They study your notes briefly before an appointment with you to get to grips with your ongoing and previous major health issues.

You are outside of the practice catchment area. Go to the one that accomodates your area. Records are transferred
Its a new doctor anyway so will be starting afresh .

Really not the issue you
think this is

You might not like your new doctor anyway

It can be a pain to involuntarily change surgeries but they may not make an exception because if they do with you, then they have to do so with others.

Your known GP has retired so you'd have a new one either in this surgery or the one you go to. They'll have your notes and medical history in the system.

Your old GP sounds great OP, I live in a village where I grew up, my old GP, sadly dead now, sat behind his huge oak desk in his living room (he held surgeries at home, his wife was the nurse) in a tweed jacket, knew everyone, made house calls, popped in to see how you were doing or just for a cuppa.

Sadly that's a bygone era, my new GP is very nice, the practice much larger and modernised, same house, but no ones home now.

Your medical records will go to the new Drs, and they will be fine, you can't fight progress.

Are you living in the 1960s? I don't think I've seen the same GP twice in the last 10 years. I fear your expectations of primary care in 2024 may be unrealistic.

You’ve been deregistered as you not in catchment…all your records will be viewable to your new gp….most use a system called emis …..it will be fine

Firstly, you could write to the surgery to appeal this decision, as previous posters have suggested, do not use the term 'kicked out'.

If the appeal is not successful, rest assured your medical details will follow with you to any new doctors surgery.

It can be quite daunting moving surgeries, especially when you have been using the same surgery for as long as you have.

I was in a similar position with my doctor's surgery, had been there since birth and could not imagine being comfortable going elsewhere. However when I moved out of the area, although they were happy to keep me registered there it just was not feasible for me to get there when needed so I changed surgeries and honestly, it actually feels no different to the other one I used to attend.

GP here. This comes up a lot and whilst I can entirely see how frustrating it is on an individual level you need to balance the needs of the practice population as a whole. People’s number one complaint is that they can’t get a GP appointment, yet what they don’t seem to realise is it’s very difficult for a practice to have the right to stop registering patients- in our own case the practice has gained a couple of thousand extra in the last 5 years because it’s a lengthy application to the powers that be. No extra funding for doctors, and no extra rooms to put them in even if there was, and no money of course to extend the size of the practice. Drawing a firm line around a catchment area is one way of managing this. Similarly it can’t be one rule for you and one rule for someone else- that’s not fair. The other reason it can become very relevant is about eligibility for local services- if you’re out of area you might not be eligible for district nurse services, maternity services etc and this can get very tricky. Home visits are time consuming at the best of times but are an essential service which should be protected for the truly housebound at all costs IMO.

However, when you’re then expecting the doctor to travel further because of your wants this isn’t reasonable (a patient who had slipped through the net and was out of area requested I do a 2 hour round journey to visit her last week and made it very clear how lazy and unreasonable she thought I was when this was declined on the basis of managing the needs of the 32 other patients I was listed to see that day). The system is failing and we simply don’t have enough hours in the day to prioritise people’s needs and wants like this anymore (and that’s as frustrating and upsetting for us as it is for you, despite what the media would have you believe.)

The counter argument to this is always ‘but I won’t need any extra services, I’m well’ to which I gently remind people that they are ‘fit and well’ until they aren’t and anyone could need community services or be a higher user of primary care at any time. So appreciate your frustrations OP but just trying to show you the other side of this.

This has happened to me more than once after I have updated my address details with the NHS. I suppose they need to make room for people who live closer. It's really, bloody annoying though!

The GP didn't disclose her brother's medical history.
He asked OP to tell her brother to come in.

Op said the gp told her he wanted to also talk to the brother about her symptoms/resulys which by doing so suggests he has the same thing which is breaking the brothers confidence no? His medical symptoms are his private and confidential Information not for his sister to know unless he tells her himself. The nhs cannot speak to anyone else about anyone's medical record unless verbal consent given by that person to do so

Sorry but that sounds incredibly annoying 😭

Same happened to my sister she was out of catchment for years nobody checks

all come to light when she got a discharge letter from hospital

she had to move surgeries

You may find a better surgery - I’d do some research and ask around.
Always be pleasant to reception staff and stop saying you’ve been kicked out as it could make it look as if you’re difficult.

@WhatMe123 i know if someone has a type of breast cancer, or blood disorder, for example, they’d tell the patient to tell the relatives to get checked. So they don’t tell the relative, but the patient, to pass on the info. Maybe I misunderstood OP about the way the info flow was going.