A woman feels "abandoned" by her doctor's surgery after being told to find a new practice two weeks after suffering a heart attack. Retired Gail Swinscoe, 66, of Calverton suffered from a heart attack on Monday, April 3, where she was airlifted to hospital after being found by her husband, Paul.
The 67 year old had to carry out CPR on his wife for 12 minutes before help arrived. He said: "I found my wife dead on the floor, it was sheer luck that I worked for the NHS many years ago that I knew how to do CPR properly, the air ambulance doctor said that was me saving her life."
Gail was airlifted to Queen's Medical Centre before being moved to Nottingham City Hospital for recovery. The couple were advised upon Gail's return home that she would need to make an appointment with their GP, which was Daybrook Medical Practice.
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Paul explained: "After she had been at home they said she had to ring the GP seven days after, so last Thursday I called the GP. It was just over an hour and 10 minutes on the phone to get through.
Paul says he was told to call back on Monday morning for an appointment and admits he "started to lose" his temper due to it being "a really stressful couple of weeks." He said: "They said it's got to be Monday morning, got to ring at 8am but if they are telling everyone to ring at 8am I'm not going to get through."
Gail managed to get an appointment and was seen by a GP at Daybrook Medical Practice on Tuesday, April 18 and thought everything was fine, but received a letter the following day on Wednesday, April 19, asking her to find a new practice. It stated: "Further to your consultation with Dr Boruch in July 2022 and confirmation that you could stay with this practice now that you have moved to Calverton, I would advise you that unfortunately, due to now possibly needing further services out of the GP practice, it will now be necessary for you to change to a new GP in Calverton."
The letter stated that it was due to the couple no longer living in the catchment area that meant they needed to find a new practice, despite acknowledging that the practice gave them permission to stay when they moved from Arnold to Calverton last year - due to Gail being with the practice for around 20 years. Regarding the letter, Gail said: "To me that means they don't want to have to do anything, I can't interpret that any other way.
"I just feel abandoned, they have just washed their hands of me. I can't believe that when I went into the surgery yesterday they didn't say this is a problem as you're not in our area."
The letter, dated the day before Gail's appointment, referred to having to review all patients against boundaries due to having a growing practice population. Paul added: "About a year and half ago we moved to where we are now, which is only a mile and half away from Daybrook Practice but is just outside of their catchment area.
"We spoke to the doctor and they said yeah fine, they'll keep us on, no problem. Now she has got a problem they don't want to deal with it.
"We have been with that practice for years and years and years, and we still own a house where we were before as we rented it out. My wife wants treating and they don't want to do it as it will cost the service."
The couple's daughter, Claire, added: "It says in the letter due to possible further care, and to me this just looks like now she's had a heart attack she is going to need more appointments, more care, get rid of her. She just feels abandoned.
"She had a heart attack was stuck in a hospital for a week and a bit and now has this to deal with, it's just not fair. The NHS are fantastic, but this service from Daybrook has been absolutely horrendous."
Paul added: "The paramedics and the air ambulance were out of this world, Queen's Med was good, City was good, but it's just the GP surgery, it's absolutely disgusting what they've done. If they had left it three months or four months until Gail was a lot better and then said you're out of our area we understand, but we are closer than a lot of people in their catchment area."
Regarding the family's concerns, a spokesperson for Daybrook Medical Practice stated: "It is practice policy that due to the growing practice population, we are in the process of reviewing all patients against our boundaries. We no longer have the capacity to continue to have patients registered outside of our catchment area and we must have a fair and consistent approach for all patients who this affects.
"We are sorry to say that this address is outside of our boundary. Patients need to be living at the address they have registered with the practice. We are unable to offer home visits and community services such as district nursing and community phlebotomy as this would need to be supplied by a different locality group and this causes complications as they are not linked to the practice.
"Patients are given four weeks to register with a GP in their area. We appreciate many patients wish to remain with the practice but for the above reasons we have to be consistent with our registration policy."
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