Clinic ban for patients who abuse GPs online

PATIENTS face a ban from their GP surgery if they abuse doctors, nurses and staff on social media.

Two clinics in North Wales have issued the warning after a spate of online attacks on Facebook.

The ‘social media zero tolerance policy’, announced by Park House Surgery in Prestatyn and Westfield Surgery in Rhyl, says negative comments could be viewed as a ‘potential breakdown in the doctor-patient relationship’ and may lead to patients being ‘removed from the list’.

It says while GPs ‘welcome all feedback’, it should be done faceto-face or in private messages rather than online. Reaction on – appropriately – social media was mixed yesterday. Glyn Chaplin said it was a ‘bit Big Brother’. Another patient, a 28-year-old mother-ofone from Rhyl, said: ‘People should be welcome to make reasonable views known.’

It comes as the Labour-run NHS in Wales remains under strain, with patients complaining they are being denied drugs available in England. Dr Nitin Shori, senior partner at Park House Surgery, said staff had faced ‘highly offensive personal comments’.

‘Everyone has the right to say what they want about the NHS being busy, but we have a duty to protect our staff from being subjected to personal abuse,’ he added. In 2012, Mathew Cochrane, 26, was struck off the books of his surgery in Penarth, South Wales, for ‘offensive’ tweets.