I have been informed by some elderly patients that GPs do not want to take them on as they are housebound and they state that since these will need home visit, they donot want to accept them. Others state condition of accepting patients is that they will not call the doctor for home visits. These patients only call doctor sparingly, only when they have no transport which is very rare and they usually have CONCESSIONARY TAXI SERVICE. Even younger patients can need home visit sometimes but they are not put this terms and services deal.  Will giving more powers to GPs, this thing will get worse and who will patients approach for help. Complaining against these and other issues, the patient is branded "trouble" and they will have difficulty finding a GP. Legitimate complaints should not lead to patients being victimised and marginalised. Often these patients are elderly or immigrants and their voice needs to be heard without reprisals. Who should these address their concerns and complaints? Anybody else has any similar concerns?

I like you consider this to be very wrong especially where elderly people are discharged from hospital much quicker and others after operations. I think this web site might be best for information in your area?

http://www.nhs.uk/Pages/HomePage.aspx

NHS Direct on 0845 4647 should be able to help in an emergency and give the advice you are seeking.

Your question is a very good one that needed to be raised, especially for people who live alone, with the proposed changes in the Health and Social Care Bill where GP's will seemingly have more choice in how they govern themselves. Of course there are many people especially the elderly who do not have computers to gain knowledge more easily or may not use web sites and it is not until they are extremely ill, in great pain or with long term debilitating illness, or are disabled to an extent they need to see a GP at home, on a few occasions.

May I suggest you write your letter to the local press asking for your name to be withheld, (although you must include it with your address) so that a great many more people can see the problem and then perhaps get some follow up answers from NHS sources that will help even more people. Of course you can contact your local councillor or M.P who can look into the matter, but it needs to be done before you are desperate to see a GP at home.

Obviously we can't expect our favourite GP's to be on call 24/7 or be called out for minor concerns.

This is very worrying indeed.  I know that some GPs try to avoid home visits but I did not think that they could flatly refuse to treat patients who are genuinely housebound.  If you know who these GPs are and where they practise my advice would be to ask the Health Scrutiny Panel at the Council to look into this and try to get some answers from the NHS.  You can always write to: Cllr Alev Cazimoglu, Chariman of the Health Scrutiny Panel, at the usual adress for the Council.  If the response provided is that this is not supposed to happen then perhaps the practices concerned could be contacted and invited to explain themselves.