I’m a GP receptionist and prepared to be honest about my job.

My GP receptionist is brilliant.

I email a request for an appointment and she emails back with a couple of appointment options, if none are suitable I can call (or text!) I can invariably get an appointment same day if urgent or otherwise it’s usually the same week. I can book non urgent (e.g. smear/general check ups) weeks in advance as needed.

My GP is private.

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@SevenWaystoLeave if that's the case and it's correct it should be then my GP appointments should be made with Sally and Fiona. When that is the case the GP may call me Roses too. Until it is the GP may call me Mrs Hellebores. To do otherwise subordinates and is reductive.[/quote]
I agree. I suspect this won’t be long coming though. I’m already on first name terms with my dentist.

@RosesAndHellebores this isn't the first time, nor the second, that you've expressed your displeasure at not being called Mrs by a GP Receptionist.

I deal with chemists, pharmacists,hospital secretaries, emails, post, 100s of clinical letters and test reports, arrange all referrals, do all test requests, type all clinicians letters, new patient files are refilled, files from patients leaving must be found and returned, clinical letters received are scanned , coded and actioned, translators requests, letters to be typed up and patients to be called to arrange reviews, Imms,smears etc, the loaning out of medical equipment - there’s lots more but hopefully you are getting the idea that my job involves far more than answering the odd call.

That's a huge admin load. Its a great shame that you and your colleagues have been let down so badly by the IT systems in the NHS Out of interest, why do all the receptionists do all of it;
wouldn't it be more efficient if specific people were on phones, another on prescriptions & consultants letters etc? I understand you are short staffed but it must waste a lot of time & focus switching between a thousand things.

Also, are you paid by NHS directly or does the funding for your job come out of the individual practice funding? In other words, do the doctors collectively set your wage? Minimum wage for a job as stressful and with as much responsibility as yours deserves a much better reward imho.

If you’re anything like the receptionists at my surgery, you’re all bloody amazing! Ours are great and go above and beyond to help you out if they can for you all!

Interesting thread

Do all receptionists sing from the same hymn sheet (so to speak) Last Monday I rang for an appointment due to covid symptons which I've had over a month and been in for 3 times. Monday receptionist was very rude said I couldn't speak to a doctor at all until end April. I rang up again Tuesday, different receptionist I said exactly the same as I did Monday, she put me on the urgent call list, within 10 mins on call doctor rang me,sent me down to surgery within 30 mins and referred me for chest xray following day and blood tests. If I had just left it as Monday receptionist I would still be here now with none of these tests. So my question is, how come some can get appts and some can't? How do you work out who needs urgent appt like I had last week? Thank you for all you do though as I can imagine it's a very hard job x

@SevenWaystoLeave if that's the case and it's correct it should be then my GP appointments should be made with Sally and Fiona. When that is the case the GP may call me Roses too. Until it is the GP may call me Mrs Hellebores. To do otherwise subordinates and is reductive.

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@SevenWaystoLeave I think you are missing the point about equality. If the GP is afforded the courtesy of a title I expect to be afforded the same level of courtesy. For what it's worth, I also think the GP should address the receptionist formally if they expect to be addressed as Dr x, y or z. As humans we are all equal and to treat another human as less equal is reductive. If the receptionist refers to the GP as Dr Bloggs then surely he or she shoukd refer to the patie t by title and indeed the nurses and hca's?

If a receptionist wouldn't call the GP luvvy why would he or she call the patient luvvy? I don't use such reductive terms when speaking to people.[/quote]
How do you know what the receptionist calls the Dr when she speaks to them directly? Could well be luvvy for all you know. Almost certainly will be first name and not "Dr Bloggs" all the time.

The ones at my surgery are lovely. The ones I have to deal with at work genuinely seem to think they’re above everyone else, no concern for the patients at all. They can be rude, don’t understand what discrete means and they are forever losing paperwork.

For those of you questioning tests not being done when patients have been seen and told they need a blood test, they’re probably the same ones that don’t collect their prescriptions each month. We have to undo many, many bags of medication every week. Then the patient will turn up two weeks after their prescription has been undone demanding it immediately, how dare we not just keep it for them to collect at their leisure.

I have another question. There’s lots of ‘is it urgent’ or claims of things being urgent. But the thing is, how do we or indeed the receptionist know if it’s urgent? Surely the doctor is the one who has the best chance of knowing this? For example, a random lump or bump - could be nothing, could be a really serious fast-growing issue. So it’s a bit unhelpful to have people who don’t know if it’s urgent in charge of gate-keeping access to the person who does know if it’s urgent or not, using urgency as the main criterion.

OP, would you presume to give a patient benefit advice?

I was refused an appointment for a fit note (long term absence from work) until after the previous one had expired. Receptionist kept saying 'it can be backdated', which I knew, but I needed to submit the new fit note before the current one expired to ensure that the DWP continued to pay my benefits, which were my only source of income.

Receptionist refused to accept this and the practice manager backed her up, while telling me that receptionist knew about this because she had had breast cancer! My benefits were suspended for a period of weeks until I was able to get my backdated fit note.

I complained, but nothing came of it, and then the same thing happened again.

@danadas I’ve only ever done this job in the private sector, liaising with the tippity top London private hospitals. Astoundingly (as of 5 years ago) we were almost entirely using fax machines and the post. I couldn’t believe it. It amazed me that anyone ever got booked in for anything. Think the NHS was phasing out fax machines more successfully than the private sector at that point.

I actually came to love the fax machines though. Think private is more forgiving to using them because the number of patients is so much smaller and there are more staff dedicated to following up booking etc. But still, it was 2017, we had the internet.

I think you and every other GP receptionists are doing a fantastic job. I must admit I didn’t realise just how much extra work you had to do, yet you’re always smiling and reassuring to whoever you have to deal with, no matter how well or horribly they’re treating you.

@SevenWaystoLeave I think you are missing the point about equality. If the GP is afforded the courtesy of a title I expect to be afforded the same level of courtesy. For what it's worth, I also think the GP should address the receptionist formally if they expect to be addressed as Dr x, y or z. As humans we are all equal and to treat another human as less equal is reductive. If the receptionist refers to the GP as Dr Bloggs then surely he or she shoukd refer to the patie t by title and indeed the nurses and hca's?

If a receptionist wouldn't call the GP luvvy why would he or she call the patient luvvy? I don't use such reductive terms when speaking to people.

Our GP also has quite a lot of older secretaries who just don't have the IT skills to do the job at the speed required. You stand there at the desk while they try and search for a record etc, typing painstakingly slowly, only to hear 2 mins later "oh wendy can you come and take a look, I'm sorry, I just can't work this system out....!" I also suspect that historically the job was a fairly low paid job that consisted mainly of filing, answering the phone and the odd bit of typing, and was probably popular with lower skilled mothers of school kids, and I wonder if as a result GP practices don't offer decent enough wages to attract more highly skilled staff.

I used to be a gp receptionist. It was grim. I'd never do it again. Hats off to you.

How do referrals to hospital specialists work? Asking because they so often go missing or dont get done and then the patient spends time making phone calls to each with one insisting it has been sent and another that it hasn't been received.
Is it a physical letter in the post which is why both have different answers?
Me, my partner and my parents are all in different surgeries and have had the same experiences so it cant be just a problem at mine, we are all under the same Trust though.

I have always wondered how the time schedule works. You obviously cant possibly know how long a patient will need with the doctor. Some take longer, some are quick, either because of how complicated issue they have or because they cant communicate that effectively etc.

I have always found the receptionists at our surgery helpful and sensible

Some people who complain seem to expect magical fairies not human beings

There is no doubt in my mind that you do all of that and more. I think people go into it wanting to make a difference and get ground down by it. Hence the reason that patients have experience of being barked at for asking a simple questions.

It's not well paid. I have no idea why anyone would want that job personally.

People have very genuine concerns about how GP practices are being run these days (i.e. have to ring at 8.30am for an appointment otherwise you can't get an appointment for three weeks type of thing). What would you do to improve things?

When I ring my GP surgery, sometimes they ask what my symptoms are. I understand why they need to ask this, so on occasion when I haven't wanted to give details, I've said things like "its gynaecological in nature". They then always probe for more specifics, which I politely explain I'm not going to give.

They continue pushing until I lose patience a little and say quite abruptly that I'm not going to discuss it further. This is what I object to - I understand they have to ask but do they really need to push as insistently for me to describe my private medical affairs in that much detail? No. They have a choice, they should have the experience and understanding to stop probing before the patient becomes unhappy about the questioning.

YABU to start a thread like this and then go out.

1. Why Dr's receptionists appear incapable of following my request and instead would rather waste time and frustrate the caller?

I suspect that they find a lot of people start off with "I can only make Tuesdays and Friday evenings after 5:30 and then when they realise there's a few extra days' wait, find that they can actually make Monday at 2:30.
I know I've said before now "After school" and then when they've said "nearest is next Wednesday, but could do today at 2:45" I've decided actually I'll take them out of school 30 minutes early and take that appointment.
Or I've said after 3:30, because I can make a 12:00-12:30 appointment but then not until after 3:30. Giving all the exact times is more awkward, so I'll go for the simple option. Then when they say "tomorrow at 12:00 I'll say yes please". But if I said: "Well I can make Monday before 10, Tuesday over lunch 12-1, Wednesday... actually scrub that, can't do Wednesday, Thursday not before 2... or any day after 3:30, they've probably forgotten half I said-totally understandably.
So they're trying to be helpful and give better options.

2. If the GPs are referred to as title and surname, ie, formally, why do receptionists invariably think they may use my first name or luvvy. Are patients not equal stakeholders in their care? That goes for the GPs too BTW

Growing up our doctors were known as Dr Michael, Dr Richard, Father Reid, and Dr H. That's what we all called them. I remember Dr Michael had a phobia of feet and everyone loved Dr H so much that if he did an extra shift they'd tell you there was a locum to stop people booking it especially to see him. Apparently some of the old ladies used to book him for a "chat". They'd have addressed dm as Mrs Jones though.
I prefer being called by my first name, but wouldn't normally correct them because does it really matter?
You can't expect the receptionists to remember who would rather be Mrs, who would rather be first name and who would rather be called "Luv".