Changing Doctors

INT1

OH moved from her mums house last year.
She moved 3 miles down the road, her local doctors which she has gone to since she was small has now said she has to go to the local doctors where she is living now.

She called them to get added to their database and they have advised they have no spaces and too stretched as it is.

Now she has now doctors she can visit.

Who would she contact to get assigned another GP.

I don't see why the Original surgery she used to attend couldn't just keep her on their list until maybe she was assigned a new surgery to visit. :rolleyes:

**confuzzled**

Can't she just stay with her old doctors using her Mums address??

This is what my DH has done and he's had no bother, even with the hospital having our actual address for his consultants appointments & check ups:)

ginvzt

You can call local Primary trust (or whatever it is called) and they will tell you who is your closest GP that accept new patients.

ginvzt

**confuzzled** wrote: »

Can't she just stay with her old doctors using her Mums address??

This is what my DH has done and he's had no bother, even with the hospital having our actual address for his consultants appointments & check ups:)

You could do that, but if doctor need to make a home visit for any reason (not that anyone expect this to happen), what will happen then - they can just refuse to do it?

We moved house recently, and were not in the catchment area of our wonderful GP. We had an appointment with his for different reason, and asked him in person if we could stay with him. He agreed that we can stay.

Has she asked her GP personally? (Not a receptionist, as often they just say you are not in our area)

minerva_windsong

NHS Choices (www.nhs.uk) allows you to search for GPs' surgeries accepting new patients. It might be worth investigating if a GP near where she works will accept her as an alternative.

3 miles seems like a very small catchment area (or whatever the GPs' term is) though - I think the catchment area for my GP is about 10 miles in each direction. Have the old doctors given her a reason why she has to leave? I could understand if she'd moved across the country but three miles doesn't seem far enough to warrant a move to me.

ginvzt

minerva_windsong wrote: »

NHS Choices (www.nhs.uk) allows you to search for GPs' surgeries accepting new patients. It might be worth investigating if a GP near where she works will accept her as an alternative.

3 miles seems like a very small catchment area (or whatever the GPs' term is) though - I think the catchment area for my GP is about 10 miles in each direction. Have the old doctors given her a reason why she has to leave? I could understand if she'd moved across the country but three miles doesn't seem far enough to warrant a move to me.

The list on the nhs website is not always up to date (I would know, out of 3 GPs listed for us only one actually was accepting new patients, although all of them states that they do.).

I think OP meant that she moved 3 miles from where she was living before, thus moving out of catchment area. When we moved the house out distance from GP remained nearly the same (ok, from 2.3miles to 3.1), but we were out of catchment area. And for previous address although NHS listed all the GPS, the first (closest distance wise) 4 or 5 would not accept us as we re not in their catchment area!

Silverbird

GPs have a duty to stick to catchment areas and it is at their discretion only if they continue to keep on patients who have moved out of that catchment area. This is due to home visits. If a home visit is ever required and you live outside the catchment area of that Practice, then they can refuse to do so, leaving you in a mess (unless they have agreed to keep you on at this address).

It would be worth asking the GP personally if she can stay on. If not then I would call your local Health Authority and find out where to go from here, as I'm sure all GP Practices must take new patients on.

INT1

Thanks for the help in your responses.
We believe the address has been updated on the system as the health visotor came to our house to check our little boy, she must of updated the system address.
We are a bit miffed as the surgery she has gone to for the last 20 odd years is only 3 miles down the road. The local surgery is probably less than a mile but upon calling them they have no available spaces.

We will be writing a letter and I also suggested she contact the surgery manager to see if anything can be done until we at least find another surgery.

I never really thought how far stretched your local doctors could be until this has happened.

Counting_Pennies_2

If your OH's surgery is linked to an out of hours service (i.e. it is a district wide service, and not the GPs from the surgery having to do out of hours) then it should be no problem staying with them.

I would contact the Primary Care Trust just to check if there are any other doctors nearby, but apart from that I would appeal to the existing doctors surgery (perhaps speaking with the doctor during a consultation, the receptionists can be quite short!) if that fails then use the mothers address to stay on in the surgery. They always ask what address you are at when they make an out of hours visit anyway, and if it is that urgent I would suggest a trip to A&E is probably more likely in that situation.

hth

Kirri

I thought this had recently been changed? I thought I read (as I was looking for a new dr this year) that you are now able to register at a dr of your choice and not specifically within a set area?

lostinrates

Miles as a measurement of catchment area isn't so accurate: my nearest practice is well over 3 miles away, then there are two more a little further still I guess, and then it would be some distance more for the next. In a built up area v a rural area I guess catchments would be smaller.

However, I thought it was also possible to be registered near, for example, a place of work?