What docrobster says. And when you move – you effectively deregister yourself if you go outside a practice area, because you are only registered at the address you gave at registration. Most of us stretch the point reasonably – but I have had patients try and stay registered 150 miles away…
And a simple point to make about why we might want to chuck people off.
I work in a semi-rural practice where we have no room to expand. To move to a new building would cost the NHS about £300 per patient we have, and double the running costs. We can provide excellent care to upto 8000 patients – but above that the wheels fall off…
So if someone moves out of our small semirural town and stays on our list – which elderly person who moves into the town do we tell to register 5 miles away?
Bottom line – most patient contacts are from children, mothers and retired people who benefit from being registered with a GP close to them. So distance from a surgery is a real issue sometimes.
Last thing. I never chuck a patient off the list because I don’t like them. Because each time you do that someone even worse walks through the door to replace them…
