A GP practice has asked a patient to leave its service after she shared a CQC report on Facebook.

Culcheth Medical Centre wrote to the 25-year-old woman after 'monitoring social media' and 'noticing' the post in a Culcheth community group.

Despite the patient, who has been at the practice for around ten years, making no comments in the post, she received a letter last week from practice manager Shelley Moores.

The letter states: 'We have noticed that you recently shared a post about Culcheth Medical Centre's CQC inspection to Culcheth Memories and Chat, from the Warrington Guardian Facebook page.

'You may be aware that the practice monitors social media and endeavours to liaise with any patients who are seemingly unhappy with the services they receive from the doctors and nurses here.

Warrington Guardian:

The Facebook post

'The GP partners feel very disappointed that you did not speak to a member of our management team if you had any complaints about the practice and the services we provide and although on this occasion you made no defamatory comments, you have done so in the past and these have been seen by the managers and staff members, as well as the GP partners.'

'As the practice does not appear to be meeting your expectations, we politely suggest that you may wish to register with another practice due to the breakdown in the patient/doctor relationship.'

It is signed off by Ms Moores on behalf of the partner GPs, doctor James Macbeth and doctor Animesh Sinha.

The post on Culcheth Memories and Chat has since been deleted but not by the patient.

The patient told the Warrington Guardian: "I was a bit dumbfounded, I honestly didn't expect that to happen.

"I opened the letter a bit confused.

"I struggle to read as I am severely dyslexic and had my dad read it back to me when he got in.

Warrington Guardian:

The letter

"We've all put things on social media we probably shouldn't but, surely I have a right to share something about that whether that be good or bad.

"I was shocked that they can't seem to sort their issues out from the inside that when something like this happens, they ban you from their practice without even a warning.

"I have had to wait over an hour for an appointment last week to be in there for less than a minute with a locum who looked like she didn't even want to be there.

"My main worry is that the practices talk to each other and my next practice would not take me because of this.

"I would like to know how many people have been banned from the practice for similar things?

"Are we not allowed an opinion? Do we live in a dictatorship where you're banned for sharing a factual post? This is Warrington not North Korea."

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A spokesperson for the practice said: "We always strive to ensure that we provide high quality services to all our patients and when a patient is unhappy with the services we provide we always offer them the opportunity to come and discuss their issues and concerns with the doctors and managers at the practice.

"There are a number of ways in which patients can provide feedback to the practice, including patient surveys and the Patient Participation Group (PPG) and we actively encourage patients to share their patient experiences with us so that this can be used to inform changes to improve our services.

"Unfortunately, when a patient does not wish to discuss issues and concerns with the practice, but is clearly very unhappy with the services, then the practice will offer to support the patient in transferring to another practice, should they wish to do so.

"Finally, whilst we are disappointed with the fact that there are a small number of patients who take the decision to raise issues via social media and other means before making contact with the practice, the offer remains for those individuals to meet with the doctors or practice managers to discuss their concerns with a view to resolving any issues."

Guidance given to doctors from the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, states: ‘You should not end a professional relationship with a patient solely because of a complaint the patient has made about you or your team, or because of the resource implications of the patient’s care or treatment'.