I upset a lady at GP surgery today

You should've been politer, I wouldn't have waited as long, but would've said something along the lines of "Sorry to interrupt but would it be OK to quickly check us in then see if this can be worked out after as I think we're a bit past my appointment time now"

The fact that people who had been standing in this 15-25 minute queue just as long and in some cases, longer than OP, were sniffy and condemnatory towards her, suggests to me her tone and attitude was the equivalent of taking a gun to a snowball fight.

You were unreasonable and rude in the way you raised it. It would have been better to interrupt and say you needed to check in rather than criticising the receptionist and the patient.

Yep. This.

There is a lot of entitlement in the world these days and it shows in some of the obtuse responses to this post.

The problem wasn't that the lady was querying the meds it was that she took up so much of a receptionist's time going around in circles. I'm going to guess that the receptionist either repeatedly responded with 'they're the same medicine just in a different package' or 'I'll send a message to the pharmacist/GP' but the lady just didn't accept this. This is exactly why GP receptionists and even GPs sometimes have no choice but to be rude. We're the Amazon Prime generation. People can no longer cope with waiting for anything or uncertainty about anything. Unfortunately there is usually a great deal of both in NHS healthcare

I agree.

We also have a self check in. It's very simple and I don't usually need to see the receptionist at all so they are free to deal with queries.

Good for you. With absolutely no sarcasm. Well done, this sort of nonsense should have been dealt with appropriately by staff, receptionist is not there to discuss meds at all and should have bumped the query to someone who could. But since it wasn't handled at all and was preventing other people from going about their business you had a perfect right to speak up.

OP - I would have been equally annoyed and frustrated. Think I would probably have said:

‘so sorry to interrupt, I can hear you’ve got a prob with your meds, what a nightmare - would you just mind hanging on a tick if we <gesturing to large queue> checked in - we don’t want to hold the doctors up by being late for our appointments’ <sympathetic face>.

I find if you are really obsequious then the other person either has to cave in the face of the obscene levels of politeness or they become the ‘bad guy’ by being rude to you. If they are rude then repeat ad nauseam then bitch about them like hell once they’ve gone. YEARS of working in retail.

If she really was there 10 minutes before you and then a full 15 minutes before you said anything then some people had been behind her 25 minutes, surely they had missed their appointment times by then!? Most people aren’t turning up to appointments half an hour early. Seems odd if the sign in machine was broken that the surgery would be happy to let a full 25 minutes go by without anybody signing in as that would have had a knock on effect on later appointments too.

The receptionist should have asked someone else to speak to her as she was clearly concerned, then booked you all in whilst someone else could have put the elderly ladies mind at ease.
🤷‍♀️

Were the doctors not wondering where all their patients were?

Every year in the England there are 237 million medication errors the lady had every right to question it.

That’s what I was thinking. My tablets come in different forms each time. An older person might not realise.

Actually, the receptionist at our GP surgery wouldn’t have engaged in such a long conversation with the patient……..they would have booked an appointment, probably a phone call, with a clinician and shut that conversation down. It’s not the administration staffs responsibility to look at patients notes and explain about changes to medication.

You were rude. Ypu could have interrupted to check in but there was no need to comment on the patient's behaviour. She may have been very worried about taking the wrong medication or suffering from a cognitive decline.

This is like cancel the cheque.

The OP did the wrong thing because the practice was at fault not the patient.

Exactly. Why is the person with a legitimate complaint being told she is in the wrong. The problem was the setup. The receptionist was doing two jobs that conflicted. Dealing with patient queries and managing check in.

The OP blamed all this on the wrong person. Now she was a round of applause.

sounds like you were impatient and outspoken

100% all of this!

25 mins…… just repeating the same thing? Really?

You could also have been polite!

If any queue was held up by one person for 25 minutes, I am absolutely sure that more than one person in that queue would complain!

This was on the receptionist. She should have made another appointment for the woman or gone and spoken to the GP to verify that the new meds had been correctly prescribed, or asked her to step aside while she checked the rest of the line in.

A lot of people on here have very poor boundaries.

An entire GP surgery was basically at a standstill because of a person’s inability to read the room and problem solve.

OP did exactly the right thing, and stated her case firmly but politely. No member of the public has the right to hold up a queue for 25 minutes, save for a life or death emergency.

yes, I thought most had those now.

It sounds like you upset a number of people tbh.

Do you not have a touchscreen for checking in?