DESPITE a formal statement from Thurrock Clinical Commissioning group about concerns of abusive behaviour and people being removed from the patients list at a village doctor's surgery, the matter continues to provide comment and concern in the community.

Last month Thurrock Nub News reported on the situation at the Orsett surgery where staff had been the subject of online abuse.

Following our story a number of patients contacted Nub news to say that they believed the surgery reaction to comments on social media was far in excess of what might have been expected – and they reiterated complaints that service offered from the surgery over recent times had declined.

In the wake of that the matter was discussed at a recent local forum meeting when Ellie Wright, a team leader with Thurrock healthwatch attended.

Ms Wright recognised local unhappiness with the surgery and  in the first instance patients and residents should complain to the practice manager. 

When she was told that residents had complained but had received no satisfactory reply and no improvement in the service, and that there had been recent examples of people being taken off that surgeries list in the wake of comments and complaints, she added: "If people are not satisfied with the response of their practice manager then I would suggest they contact us and we can advise the appropriate steps forward if they wish to escalate the issue into a complaint.

 "So if residents have individual concerns in the meantime then please do tell them to contact us."

Ms Wright can be contacted by email at  [email protected]