The case is a puzzling one, as I have been only able to glean fragments of details about it. A doctor in a practice in Dudley, near Birmingham, has been fined £500 by the Ombudsman. This relates to a letter that was sent to a patient asking her to apologise for her bad behaviour at the practice, being abusive to the receptionists, kicking at a door and describing the practice as 'Shit'.
The clinical details are confusing as it relates to a patient who "has an undiagnosed medical condition that causes her to collapse". That is a very strange description. The complainant bought this woman (her adult daughter) to the practice after surgery was finished, but before the closing time of the building, and when told that an appointment was not available, started behaving badly.
This seems a really disproportionate response from the Ombudsman, which includes reporting the case to the General Medical Council, and making the details public. That appears to be a centrally decided strong-arm response by an official body that has not obvious credibility for me.
We face low level complaining all the time in General Practice. It is about us trying to match increasing demands to vanishing resources. We get absolutely no help from the authorities and the media. Now we have a woman in an Ivory Tower actually fining a doctor for asking a patient not to be rude to his staff.
I stand 100% behind the wronged doctor. He should not pay the fine. This is an outrageous response from a meaningless apparatchik. It is described as compensation. Compensating the complainant for what, exactly - bad behaviour?
As for reporting the case to the wretched GMC and making the details public, words do fail me. Maybe they'll fine me £50,000 for blogging about it. They can pay the compensation to the GMC, after all they've had enough of my money in the past.
Grrrrrr.....
8 comments:
So what happened to the concept of zero tolerance to patients who abuse and assault NHS staff?
I too know of a colleague who was physically attacked by an aggressive patient. The doctor was able to adequately defend himself, as a result of which his employing Trust suspended him and reported him to the GMC.
Zero tolerance is corporatist bullshit. The doctor (teacher, social worker, nurse) is usually hung out to dry
The message this sends is that you can be rude and aggressive to your GP and do it with impunity. Threatening to remove a patient from your list was effective in stopping bad behaviour on the 2 occasions I have used it over 20 years. Both patients are still on my list and the relationship improved after they realised how intolerable their behaviour was.
I'm lucky, I work for a trust that has no problems with us calling the police and having patients lifted. We have even instituted a system where we can ASBO a patient after an incident, again with the support of the police and management.
May I from a nurses point of view give a possible diagnosis (which I am certain you have already thought of) for the patient who "has an undiagnosed medical condition that causes her to collapse" it is called attention seeking behaviour, or as my gran used to call it sheer bloody childishness.
Treatment is a leather suppository administered very hard and fast and also counselling in the shape of "stop pissing about".
Oh if only it were that simple.
This is one of the many reasons why in the next decade or so we shall not have a GP service in the UK.
Bullshit you are attention seeking hence why you have to call the policewhen a patient challenges your practice and get the lifted what for .. speaking!
Anonymous 14 November 03:10;
What are you talking about?
No-one gets arrested for challenging practice. What they DO get arrested for is Breach of the Peace or assault.
I read the GPOnline story. It says the woman took her unconscious daughter (?) to the surgery after she'd collapsed at work. It quotes the patient, "This surgery is shit, I can’t believe I can’t get an appointment". The practice sent her a letter saying she, who had been a patient for 24 years, must apologise, or leave the practice.
Of course the patient should have waited till she'd left the building, and looked around very carefully even then, before saying "This surgery is shit". But your implicit defence of the GP is inappropriate given the facts at *GP*Online.
But then, you won't have stood waiting patiently after you've been given the wrong prescription, smiling politely and humbly, all the while staring at one of several massive ZERO TOLERANCE postera...
Assault? Call the police. Breach of the Peace, well, that's in the eye of the beholder, still: threatening behaviour, call the police. "This surgery is shit"? Get a grip.
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