Changing Doctors

LondonDiva

Counting_Pennies wrote: »

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

Please do not do as this poste suggests as you could end up without a doctor when you needed one the most as the bloke in the middle of treatment for liver cancer found when his practice found out that he was not in their area - they removed him from the practice list and he had to become familiar with a new practice in a hurry.

What you need to do in this order is:

Speak to a GP and ask if they are prepared to keep you on their list and carry out home visists even though you are out of catchment.

If that doesn't work, go on www.nhs.uk and find out the number for your local PALS team - they will have a list of practices you fall under with open lists. If they include the practice who've rejected you, you need to let them know as it could be the practice are trying to either cherry pick patients or have closed their list without letting the Trust know (potential breach of the contract).

Do NOT go to A&E with a minor problem, if you know that it can either wait or be dealt with by an out of hours GP. This is the reasons for the long waits in A&E and diverts money unneccessarily from other parts of the system.

LondonDiva

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.

It depends on the area, number of GPs at a practice and the spread of other services or practices within that locality.

Catchment areas in London can cover a much smaller than 3 miles, in some cases less than 1/2 mile in area.

Kirri

lostinrates wrote: »

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?

Yep, this was what I thought I'd read, when the nhs choices website was being publicised earlier this year, I thought with that they announced greater choice for patients over their gp ie could be nearer to work (not much good if off sick and at home though!) and hospital??

INT1

LondonDiva wrote: »

Please do not do as this poste suggests as you could end up without a doctor when you needed one the most as the bloke in the middle of treatment for liver cancer found when his practice found out that he was not in their area - they removed him from the practice list and he had to become familiar with a new practice in a hurry.

What you need to do in this order is:

Speak to a GP and ask if they are prepared to keep you on their list and carry out home visists even though you are out of catchment.

If that doesn't work, go on www.nhs.uk and find out the number for your local PALS team - they will have a list of practices you fall under with open lists. If they include the practice who've rejected you, you need to let them know as it could be the practice are trying to either cherry pick patients or have closed their list without letting the Trust know (potential breach of the contract).

Do NOT go to A&E with a minor problem, if you know that it can either wait or be dealt with by an out of hours GP. This is the reasons for the long waits in A&E and diverts money unneccessarily from other parts of the system.

Thanks again for all the respnses, I shall try this and see how we get on.

hardpressed

She will still be registered at her old doctors until she is registered with a new doctor. Phone the PCT, either surgery will give you the phone number and tell them the position, they must then find a Doctor who can take her. It may be that the new house may be in another PCT's area, but they will be able to advise. The catchment area of the surgery is defined by the PCT and it may well be that one house in a road is with one doctor while the neighbouring house is in another's area.