AN MP has criticised the NHS and called for an investigation after a worried mum was turned away from a GP surgery.

Darlington MP Jenny Chapman  said what had happened to Gemma Nattrass, 24 and her two-year-old daughter Kasie was  “unacceptable.”

The Labour MP  said she would be asking Darlington Clinical Commissioning Group for a report on the case.

She was commenting after The Northern Echo published the story of how a concerned Darlington mum who took her little girl to see her GP because she wasn’t satisfied with a diagnosis at an NHS walk-in centre  was refused a consultation because she had attended an NHS walk-in centre an hour before.

Within an hour of being turned away by a GP, a doctor in the accident and emergency department of Darlington Memorial Hospital told her the little girl had scarlet fever and needed a ten-day course of penicillin.

Nursery nurse Gemma Nattrass, 24, has written a letter of complaint to the Moorlands Surgery in Willow Road, Darlington, and has registered with another practice.

Miss Nattrass became concerned about her daughter, Kacie, when she developed a rash.

Thinking that it would be quicker to take her daughter to the Dr Piper House walk-in centre than to try for an appointment at her surgery, she took Kacie to be checked out by a nurse.

She was told that the rash was probably only eczema but by the next day Kacie had gone off her food, had been repeatedly sick and was suffering from diarrhoea.

So Miss Nattrass took her little girl back to the same walk-in centre, where she was told that her daughter had a viral infection.

Still unhappy about the diagnosis, Miss Nattrass decided to take her daughter straight to the GP surgery where the family was registered.

Miss Nattrass was pleased to get an immediate appointment but when she took Kacie in to the consulting room and told the duty GP what was wrong with her daughter the doctor refused to see the little girl – citing the fact that she had just been to an NHS walk-in centre an hour before.

“I went back out to reception and asked if I could see somebody else. She said she would go in and ask him but she said he still wouldn’t see us,” she added.

Shocked and upset, Miss Nattrass took her daughter to Darlington Memorial Hospital’s A&E department, where Kacie was seen and diagnosed within 20 minutes.

She added: “I was upset that no-one would help me. Everyone I talked to can’t believe the way I was treated."

The Northern Echo has contacted Moorlands Surgery for comment, but has not received a reply.