Staff at a doctors surgery in Bushey were left shocked last month after a father locked himself in a room and refused to leave until his child was seen face to face.
The incident happened at Manor View Practice, Bushey Medical Centre on October 18.
The man locked the door of a consultation room of a young General Practitioner (GP), and claimed he would not leave until his child received an appointment in person.
Dr Ketan Bhatt, who is a GP at Manor View, took to Twitter to explain what had happened.
He said: “Yesterday, one of our patients refused to accept a remote diagnosis of conjunctivitis for his well child. He marched down to the practice, straight into a young female GPs room, locked the door and refused to leave until he had a face to face diagnosis.
“Our GP handled this amazingly well, and of course the police are involved but we are all shocked. How has it come to this? I’m stunned. When did patients start threatening GPs to get what they want?”
The doctor involved raised the internal alarm and was supported by Manor View staff who asked the family to leave and reported the event to the police.
Following the incident, Manor View Practice released an official statement online: “Our staff come to work to care for others, not to be victims of abuse, threats, violence or distrcimination.
“If you are abusive, threatening or violent to our team, we have the right to refuse to treat you, and we will remove you from our practice list.
“We may also report your actions to the police and you may face prosecution.”
A spokesperson for Hertfordshire Police said: “Police were contacted at around 9.40pm on Monday 18 October following an incident at a doctors’ surgery in Bushey.
“It was reported that an altercation had occurred earlier in the day, at around 3pm, involving members of staff and a male. Accounts were taken by officers and no offences were identified. Words of advice were given.”
I can understand his frustration. Why is it so difficult to get a GP appointment. Perhaps seeing the child in the first place would have been the more sensible option. Covid excuses are wearing very thin
It might not have been the right way to go about it but the fact of the matter is, people are not happy when they can’t be seen by a doctor. It seems that the gp’s are quite happy to do phone consultations. I think Boris needs to tell gps they need to go back to seeing patients.