A mum says she is distraught after being taken off the books of her lifelong GP practice for moving metres away. Emma Shaw claims the GP removed her after she temporarily moved 30m away whilst her new house is being built.
The mother, her partner and her son were all previously registered with Great Sutton Medical Centre in Cheshire. However, the family recently moved into temporary accommodation whilst they await the completion of the building of their new home.
This switch meant they were taken off the books of the medical centre and will now need to find a new GP for eight months, reports Cheshire Live. After this period, the family will move back into the surgery's boundary and can re-register at the practice.
Emma says she has been left feeling distressed and anxious about her family having to go through the process of registering with a new practice. Alongside, having to go through everything again with new surgery staff who aren't familiar with their medical history.
She said "I said we were moving temporarily while waiting for our new property to be built and they said that's fine as long as you don't have home visits. About a year on from that point they said that actually they had changed their minds.
"There's no element of patient care at all which has been part of their rationale. The response we got felt like more of a business transaction with the way it was worded and it shouldn't be like that."
"The thing that bothers me the most is that I have been with this practice since birth, which is 44 years. My children, parents and grandparents have been with the same practice.
"I am comfortable with being with this surgery and we don't want somebody else involved who doesn't know our history. We don't want to have to go through things all over again.
"I have never needed my surgery more than at any time in my life. If we weren't in temporary accommodation I would understand. We've got until the end of November to move surgeries now."
The mother claims that when she put her current post code into the NHS website to find potential new surgeries, Great Sutton Medical Centre was one of the options listed. She has stated that she has appealed against the decision, writing a detailed letter raising a number of concerns.
Emma has also reached out to her Ellesmere Port and Neston MP Justin Madders, who has been investigating the situation for his constituent. Mr Madders said: "Emma Shaw is one of my constituents and I have been helping her with her appeal against the decision of the Great Sutton Medical Centre, which does have 20,145 patients on its register.
"I am aware that at least one other GP practice in Ellesmere Port decided quite some time ago to begin removing some of their registered patients. At the end of the day the problem is that there are too few suitably qualified doctors and nurses in Cheshire West and elsewhere in the UK."
A spokesperson for Great Sutton Medical Centre said: "Great Sutton Medical Centre, like many GP practices in the area and nationally, is under extreme pressure to provide quality services. To enable the practice to do this, we have had to review our policy on providing care to all patients who sit outside of our boundary (classified as out of area).
"Unlike many practices we have held off reviewing this for a long period of time. However, the pressure on our practice has reached a point where we feel it important to review our capacity to ensure we can continue to provide a quality service to our patients.
"Following much consideration, the practice decided it was no longer able to provide suitable care to patients from outside its boundary. We have applied this change in a fair and equitable manner to all patients who are out of area.
"The decision to provide care to patients out of area is at the discretion of the practices themselves, and we are entitled to review this at any point as part of our contract. In the past we felt we could provide a service to all patients who requested this from Out of Area as long as they understood we would be unable to provide home visits.
"We have been in conversation about this decision with NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board representatives who have supported our decision as an approach to provide sustainable healthcare. If a patient moves back within our boundary, they are more than welcome to re-register with the practice and will be accepted as our list is currently open.
"We cannot provide information about specific cases but we can confirm any appeals made have been reviewed by clinicians to identify any risks of the process for the patients concerned."
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