A disabled pensioner has been forced to wait for hours in A&E for prescriptions after being kicked out of her GP surgery, her family has claimed.

Mary Josephine Wheeler, known as Josie, 79, has to use colostomy bags after suffering a ruptured bowel.

But after being deregistered “without warning” from Lee Road Surgery, she has had to go back to hospital at least three times for refills and sit in the waiting room.

“My mum has been up in A&E for three hours at a time waiting for new colostomy bags,” Josie’s daughter Claire told News Shopper.

“It’s such a waste of NHS resource, to have her sitting there all that time. She’s very frail herself.”

She added her mum had been with Lee Road Surgery for 50 years and the family was not aware they had been deregistered until Claire went to pick up some blood test results at the end of June.

According to Claire, her entire family including an 11-year-old son were taken off the books at the surgery because they live out of the borough, in Eltham.

“I don’t understand that because we’ve lived at the same address in Eltham for 48 years,” the Oxleas governor argued.

She claims a freedom of information request to the surgery revealed it currently treats 11 out of area patients.

While the Wheelers were first told they may be deregistered in 2017, Claire claims after confronting the surgery she never heard any more on the issue.

According to Claire, the next time she was made aware the family had been deregistered was in June 2019.

She has accused the practice of breaching its duty of care to its patients and claimed the family has been “targeted.”

"To do that to elderly disabled people, it's just disgusting," she told News Shopper.

On top of Josie’s condition, Claire is waiting to have a hysterectomy and her son, who has just started secondary school, has additional needs. His mum claims he only feels comfortable at his trusted GP surgery that he has been with since he was born.

News Shopper has seen a letter from a care coordinator to Lewisham Clinical Commissioning Group which raises “significant concerns” about the family being deregistered from the surgery due to their medical needs.

A spokesman from Lewisham CCG said: “The CCG does not routinely comment on individual cases.

“However, we can confirm that the CCG has been supporting Ms Wheeler to register with a GP practice closer to her home and the Lee Road Surgery has been in contact with Ms Wheeler on this matter since April 2017.

“It is important that patients register with a GP practice close to where they live to enable access to home visits, out of hours care and community services, for example, district nurses.”

The CCG did not acknowledge why the family had only been deregistered now, after 48 years of living out of the area.

It also did not respond to the care coordinator’s concerns about the detrimental impact of moving the family away from the surgery.