Following major surgery for my wife and having suffered from sepsis, on discharge the hospital asked the GP to do a blood test for liver failure function.

Her GP marked the blood test form as “urgent” but the blood test staff at Shrewsbury Road Centre said: “GPs always make forms urgent” so they refused to carry out the test and said they didn’t have any slots. I explained that she had a major surgery and was not even in a state to walk and NHS staff are putting a patient at risk by overriding a GP urgent request. Staff said: “We don’t have slots” and I was told: “You are being rude” I even said we can wait but was still refused. I showed them the NHS Trust website where it says people can walk in but the staff member said: “I don’t know about the NHS Website” and refused to do a blood test.

I went back and forth to the GP and the blood service four times where the GP had stamped and personally signed the blood request form but blood test staff still refused. In the end I had to request a GP manager to come along to the blood test service where staff still refused to carry out the blood test and the staff said to the GP manager the same thing: “GPs always make forms urgent”. Finally the GP manager spoke to someone in the office who then agreed to do the test.

There was no “receptionist” available to book the blood test and I witnessed many patients including elderly people with urgent blood test requests being turned away. My wife was not in a position to even talk as she was in a lot of pain from the surgery. If I was not there she would have been turned away. We are totally shocked by the service which has no regard for patient care and the risk they are putting on patients by overriding a GP’s decision.

I have made a complaint and the manager has told me that this should have not have happened and the staff should have taken the blood test. She also accepted the NHS Barts Trust website was not fully accurate. The manager is yet to interview the blood test staff and get back to me.

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