I upset a lady at GP surgery today

Did it not occur to you that if the lady had received the wrong medication and taken it, it could have been fatal ? If my medication was wrong, I would have stood there until I was given some clarification too.

After 5 minutes, another receptionist should have been called to deal with the queue of waiting patients, while the original receptionist dealt with the elderly lady.

Whilst I was sitting and waiting for an appt last week, the receptionist took a call for someone to make an appointment. They went back and forth for soooo long, it became a bit crazy. The caller was obviously giving "I can do X Y Z before or after these times". Offered certain dates and times and couldn't do any of them - this happened about 3-4 times. The receptionist had to put them on hold twice to answer and hold other calls. I ended up thinking, "this isn't a restaurant or activity you're booking, just take one of the offered times!". These patients take up so much time, sometime they need to be firmly told and their expectations managed. If we all took 15 minutes to speak with a receptionist we would be in a lot worse state than we are now.

YWNBU reception should have said something sooner. Our Drs usually have 2 receptionists on at once. There has been occasions when both have had someone going on for ages. Elderly are the worse thinking they can just walk in and be seen.

Some people are in their own bubble they don’t give a shit about anyone else. Can garantee I will get 1 of these people if I have to go in because a prescription hasn’t been sent or they have made an error so can’t dispense usual meds. I’m in and out in a minute and it’s frustrating.

They won’t have changed her meds but it would have been a different brand name. The pharmacy will give whatever’s available. They do it with 1 of my DD’s. For 1 of her meds though it really does have an effect on her and her consultant wrote it into her prescription she is only to have 1 brand which is more expensive than the others.

Of course you were right, she can’t stop the whole surgery. Reception should’ve dealt with her better though tbh. She can make a new appointment to discuss the medication if she must but it’s nothing to do with reception.

@TheQuirkyMaker Voted yabu as you said she was elderly and female.
makes me wonder if you would have done the same, been so rude if patient was younger and/ or male???

@TheQuirkyMaker There's what you say, and how you say it, OP. The fact that you said it loud enough for other people to hear sounds like you were lacking care and tact in your approach. Sounds like a very weak approach to me. Especially when dealing with an elderly woman.

A stronger and more confident person would have approached the elderly woman and receptionist more gently, lowered their voice, and gently suggest that the discussion could continue after other people had a chance to check in.

This is the fault of the receptionist. S/he should have moved her along much earlier.

In an ideal world I think that would be the perfect thing to say for the situation, but I’d imagine a surgery would probably ban a patient and strike them off for saying that to a staff member

Fair 🤣

But they always manage to answer the GPs immediately.

25 minutes?! She would have been made to leave after 2 minutes in my local surgery.

I’m surprised you all stood around, it would have been anarchy here.

I think your response should have been directed at the Receptionist rather than the lady talking to her. You could have said something along the lines of "Excuse me, I wouldn't interrupt normally, but you don't seem to be able to help this lady. Would it be better to refer her to someone who can, and you could then deal with the rest of the queue more quickly?"

Not unreasonable at all. Somebody had to say it. 15 minutes is ridiculous. The receptionist should have been more assertive.

Yanbu.
I get very ill if I stand for any length of time so I always butt in if I need to in these kind of circumstances. They need an appointment system to sort out those longer conversations

Clinician in a GP surgery here 🙋🏼. There is zero way that a queue built up for 25 MINUTES and that zero patients booked-in as arrived in the whole of that 25 MINUTE window.

In our inner city surgery we get very busy, and our self check-in breaks, and our reception gets a bit backlogged with people with enquiries etc… but the absolute worst it gets (on the very busiest most chaotic days you could
imagine) is probably a 5 minute wait. Maximum. …That feels like a very long time for those waiting. It’s frustrating for them, it’s boring, it’s stressful, and they’re feeling poorly

But what it categorically ain’t is 25 MINUTES 🙄

Agree and depends how yo say things.

I doubt the receptionist would have answered the phone, given how busy she was

As a GP this is really annoying. If a patient doesn’t check in I just assume they’ve not turned up, and I get on with filing test results, reading letters etc till the next patient arrives. It’s really annoying if the patient then suddenly checks in, 15 minutes late, and I’m told it was due to a queue at reception. Because it wasn’t the patient’s fault, I still have to see them, making me run late for all subsequent patients.

We have a self check-in, but it sometimes malfunctions, and also some patients can’t work out how to use it.

You were right to say something OP, but really the receptionist should have taken control of the situation and asked the lady to step aside for a moment while she checked people in (which literally takes a few seconds).

Yeah.
I used It's very surprising that the clinicians weren't contacting reception to see what was going on to convey all of the above politely.
But you've definitely made your point.

So the GP sat and twiddled their thumbs?

They didn't pop out or phone reception to ask where all the patients were for the last 25 minutes?

Not really - the incompetent receptionist who didn’t offer a solution was the problem. You were then rude about the person with the least power and the most need of a solution. Well done you!

I'm old and I never hold up a queue in the bank because I never go into the bank as I check my balance via the banking app on my phone. I can't even recall the last time I went into my bank, must have been years ago.

or isn't it not plausible that it was obviously not 25 minutes at all, as not even the politest person on the planet would stand behind someone listening to that for twenty five minutes, without politely attempting to get the receptionists attention to check themselves in.

And it is HIGHLY unlikely that a receptionist would allow it to continue without asking them to step to one side momentarily so they could check anyone in waiting for an appointment and come back to her.

And there is no way on the planet that those 5 people were all 25 minutes EARLY to their appointments.. as soon as it hit their appointment time they would have been politely (or impolitely) interrupting, you can't even get an appointment half the time, there's no way those 5 people stood there watching their appointment come and go with only an eye roll, total rubbish.

Thanks - I accept that, but the OP deciding to criticize the woman publicly for trying to stand her ground when she wasn't getting the help she needed just wasn't necessary or reasonable. You're right that there might not have been a real problem and i presume the OP assumed not too. But there may also have been a very dangerous problem. So even if we can all think of harmless explanations, they're not relevant.

It's hard enough trying to get medics and receptionists to listen to you sometimes without the other patients ganging up on you too! But sorry if I misunderstood your point.

Another staff member could have come to help. What's this lady supposed to do - go home and go without meds / take the wrong meds because she's not being heard and helped?

I would absolutely have interrupted and asked to check in. I wouldn't have waited 15 minutes or 25 minutes. But I'd have done so politely and without reference to the conversation another woman was having about her own medical needs.