Quote:
Originally Posted by RainbowSix
As far as I know Having ghost patients on their lists also makes it harder for people to register as the practice will have a set number of patients that it can have on it's books.
So by being able to remove non responding patients who they have not seen in many years will enable new patients who do need to see a doctor to be taken on, thus being more efficient and saving the NHS (and us) money that could be better spent on other things.
If you rarely see the doctor or want to remain on their books you only have to contact them to say so, that's not too hard is it? If you have moved, left the country, died or are as fit as a fiddle and have no need of a doctor then you lose nothing. I see this only as an efficiency measure, keeping their records up to date with current patients - nothing wrong with that
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There is nothing wrong at all in making sure that GP's are not claiming for patients who(for whatever reason) are no longer using the service...what is wrong,however, is the
method by which this is being done.
Paying a private company(whose aim is to make a profit) to do the work of sending out letters...which in itself is an expense, is not, in my opinion, the way to go about it.
Surely it is an easy job to find out if someone is still residing in the borough(electoral roll will provide evidence)....and if there has been no request by another GP for records then that patient should not be sent a mail shot.
If I were no longer living in Accrington, or had decided to change my GP...surely to goodness my new GP would want my records......this request should be flagged up by the administrative staff of the practice.......I have to say the cynical part of me thinks that GP's who are being paid what amounts to a retention fee for each patient, are not letting on when patients leave their list.
Why would you elect to lose money if you didn't have to?