In our 2024 User Survey, 55% of responders said they were very unsatisfied or quite unsatisfied with their engagement with their GP.
Problems raised on our helpline and at group meetings include refusal of parents to share information about their child’s health or medication they have been prescribed. This is particularly important where a child spends time with both parents but medical information is controlled by one.
Guidance to GPs by the General Medical Council on how to deal with parents who both have Parental Rights and Responsibilities and who both have care of their children but who do not live together is contained in the ‘0-18’ which says sharing of such information is for the parents to work out.
Shared Parenting Scotland Chief Executive, Kevin Kane, says, “We feel the GMC guidance to GPs, ‘0 – 18’ is unsatisfactory. It can’t be in the interests of the child – the patient – who spends time with both parents but only one knows about medication that has been prescribed, or investigations into serious conditions. Of course parents should share such important information about their child but the GMC guidance offers no help where that does not happen.
We have discussed the issue with the GMC and with Practice Manager groups to encourage more ‘patient-oriented’ practice where important medical information is not being shared between parents.”
