Ms D’s baby daughter was due to be immunised. The day before the jabs were due, the GP Practice said they had miscalculated baby J’s age and could not immunise her for another week. Ms D’s family were going abroad in a few days, expecting baby J to have been immunised by then. Ms D was worried about travelling and rearranged the flights.

The day before she was due to fly out, Ms D took baby J to the Practice’s baby clinic. Unfortunately, the nurse was off sick and no one else was available to immunise baby J. Ms D was annoyed and upset by this. She allegedly said ‘what part of flying tomorrow do you stupid people not understand?’ and was said to have deliberately knocked over a vase. Ms D denied both allegations. She returned from her holiday to find a letter from the Practice telling her that her behaviour had been unacceptable, and both she and baby J were to be removed from the list.

The Practice’s hasty actions shocked and frustrated Ms D, and gave her no chance to improve relations with them. Baby J needed regular monitoring, and Ms D was worried that her daughter’s health was put at risk by their removal from the Practice list. Also, Ms D has epilepsy and needs regular prescriptions, so the need to find a new practice was also a concern to her.

Ms D was unhappy with the way the Practice dealt with her complaints about what had happened and she came to the Ombudsman.

We investigated Ms D’s complaint about the Practice’s decision not to immunise baby J and found that they had acted reasonably on both occasions. We also found that the Practice had responded quickly to Ms D’s subsequent complaint and provided evidence-based reasons for not immunising baby J. We did find, however, that the Practice had removed Ms D and baby J from their list without warning. The Practice also failed to follow professional guidance which says removal should be carefully considered and only used ‘if all else fails’; and that other family members should only be removed in rare cases.

The Practice did not consider why Ms D was so distressed and how the relationship could be rebuilt. The Practice also did not think about baby J’s needs.

This case was all the more alarming because the Ombudsman had previously investigated a similar complaint about the same Practice in 2006. At that time the Practice said they would follow the rules in future, but they clearly did not do so in Ms D’s case. We asked the Practice to prepare plans to prevent a recurrence. They have since reviewed their procedures and arranged training for clinicians. The Practice also apologised to Ms D and paid her compensation of £250.