Mistreated by the NHS and don't Know Why - Very Upsetting!

Hello Gransnet,

This is my first post and a sad one.

I feel I have been shockingly treated by the NHS and wondered if anyone else had come across this also.

I was called in by PATCHS AI to my GP's London surgery to what I thought was an emergency appointment that I had already cancelled so I could attend an important funeral. When I got to the surgery there was no such appointment on their books and it turned out PATCHS AI had made a mistake but when I explained to the receptionist all she did was laugh. I ask her to show me some respect because I had missed my Mother's funeral due to their mistake but she continued laughing. I got so distraught that I ended up collapsed in a toilet there with heart palpitations.

I am 70 years old, frail, multiply disabled and a vulnerable adult with complex needs and I made a complaint about the receptionist to the Practice Manager.

About a week later I discovered that I had been placed with a surgery miles away and put on what is called a "Special Allocations Scheme" which means I need a chaperone with me for all GP's appointments for a year until my situation is reviewed.

It was all a complete mystery to me until I got a letter through the post saying that I had been placed on the scheme due to an incident in the surgery that occurred on the 6th July 2026 – only I wasn't even in the country on that day let alone at the said surgery!

I found out through the BMA (British Medical Association – I am a retired doctor) that the Special Allocations Scheme used to be for violent patients but it is now also for patients who need safeguarding – hence the chaperone. But I still don't know what I am meant to have done and I don't feel I need safeguarding. I get on with life perfectly well when I am not being laughed at and distressed because of missing my Mother's own funeral causing me heart palpitations due to stress. But I no longer trust the NHS Primary Care now.

I am very distressed and contacted the Patients Association who advised me to appeal against being placed on the Scheme and to ask for clarification as to why I have been put on it which I did. They did not reply to me until I contacted my MP and then they said they were considering the appeal but they have still not told me why I was placed on it.

I feel like a criminal who has been found guilty of a crime but does not know what they are meant to have done.

I am ridden with anxiety. This has knocked my confidence and I am vomiting and have seizures all the time due to stress. It has made me feel repulsed to be put on a scheme that violent people may be put on also because I have worked hard as a social worker, doctor and child psychologist for over 50 years and never had a complaint against me. I can't get any sense out of the NHS about this and the worry is making me ill because as a Christian and professional I take my honourable reputation very seriously. Worse if I have engaged in behaviour that was found unacceptable I would like to know what it is so I could correct it. But it seems strange that this happened to me straight after I made the one and only formal complaint I have ever made about the NHS.

I am still grieving for my Mother and missing her funeral and am thinking of going on BUPA since right now I do not want to deal with the Primary Care services in the NHS.

Can anyone advise me? Has anything like this happened to you or someone you know?

Thanks,

Fiona