I upset a lady at GP surgery today

Absolutely! I was only pointing out that the OP has now said it was 10 minutes, not 25.

I mean it's literally impossible to know how long it actually was as OP doesn't seem to know, and may have only been a minute or two but its still not OPs job to criticise the woman, and the receptions job to manage any growing queue

Then you should know better.

But Brefugee is right: you still chose to pick on the person in the weaker position.

Usually people who mention someone is "elderly" don't consider themselves to be old, so it's not unreasonable for Brefugee to tthink you have a few years before you consider yourself elderly.

Ageism is rife - maybe the people who tutted at you were thinking "Grumpy, interfering old bat".

It was 10 minutes.

The problem was with the GP receptionists wasn't it not the woman?

You have no idea what changes had happened to this womans medication, it could be a complete fuck up. She could be on important meds where the brand/dose does matter (parkinsons/epilepsy) or is at least stressful if it changes. They could have deprescribed important meds. A medication change can be quite anxiety inducing and it's fair enough for a patient to be informed by a Dr or reassured by a clinician.

You assume she's being stupid, but also describe as her as bright as a button

You chose to call out the woman for wasting your time when really it was the receptionist who turns out was just hiding in their booth the whole time?! Why couldn't they have just opened their shutters if the queue wasn't moving for 25 mins?! This is just poor management from the reception team, and you didn't want to call them out because you were worried they would "turn on you".

Could I ask what the GP receptionist was saying to her for her to keep repeating “but nobody told me” line.

ah you took the easy route of picking on a worried elderly lady.

God i hope that never happens to you.

Well, some medical receptionists need to learn how to handle some situations. And this is one of them.

"Ms X, just let me check these people in quickly and we'll have a look at that for you"

Agree all the fucking "bright as a button" is the kind of patronising twaddle you use for a toddler.

My MIL is exactly the same. We all make allowances because she has Alzheimers but in all honesty she has been a difficult old coot her entire life.

the vile fucking ageism that gets allowed on this site. JFC

There was a limit to how many times we wanted to hear that. Yes, we get you weren't told, or didn't listen, or didn't understand! We get it!

It really doesn't matter how often you or various other random people heard or got it; the person the lady wanted to be heard by was the receptionist as, at that point, she was the only person able to address the problem.
I've waited behind a mother of a baby in the chemist's before now and they've had exactly the same problem (same medication, different name) and kept repeating themselves. This isn't something that only happens to "elderly" people.
It really was up to the receptionist to say that she is not qualified to deal with prescriptions but, if the lady can wait or go home and take a phone call, she'll arrange that.
You're directing your irritation at the wrong person and, given you saw fit to mention that person's apparent age, it's hard to believe that your judgement isn't clouded by ageism, conscious or unconscious.

You weren't unreasonable to be irritated. You were unreasonable to be rude.

There's just no reason at all you couldn't have just asked to check in. All the rest about what her problem was and how she was dealing with it isn't relevant.

You could maybe indicate to the management that receptionist needs more training, but now we are down from 25 minutes to maybe 10 I think you should leave it alone since you don't seem to have the facts.

Any other little details you misremembered?

Been both sides of the desk on this one.
Receptionist should have made a quick call through to the back office to ask for assistance on the reception desk
She could also have asked the lady to take a seat while she sorted out the queue and then got back to her.
Or..rang through and asked someone to come and sort the lady out

25 minutes. If, as you say, it’s true.

'you are just one of those entitled people acting as if your time should be more important to the world than this old lady’s time.' But it IS more important than the old ladies time because if the OP is telling the truth the old lady has already taken up at least 15 minutes of everyone's time!

Don’t kknoww if this is the case here, but I worked at a gp surgery and our prescription clerk was bombarded with people complaining about geomg changed from generic versions from branded. Exactly the same. She should have been diverted to the practice pharmacist. She may have been holding up someone with potentially serious problems such as chest pain, etc

Omg, seriously? You obviously don't work for the NHS. They would have been making their phone calls, checking their message list, looking at incoming medical reports or taking a call from a paramedic or palliative care team.
The general public really don't have a clue

You were the AH in this situation. Either stay quiet or say something helpful otherwise you are just one of those entitled people acting as if your time should be more important to the world than this old lady’s time. Not a good look.

It sounds like the woman had a legitimate concern and staff should have explained the change or booked her in with the onsite pharmacist for a chat if the receptionist didn’t know the answer.

The fault is with the receptionist staff for not handling this better and not getting a second member of staff involved to help everyone else.

What you could have said was something in support of the lady that jogged it along like “If you can’t answer her question, perhaps you could book her in with someone who can? Or are you forcing her to make a subject access request just to get a simple question answered.”

GP surgeries boil my piss because they are not the NHS (they are a private business who charge the NHS per patient on the books, not per appointment given) yet everyone assumes that they are the NHS so when they treat people badly the NHS gets the blame. I wish the government would bring GP’s functions in-house. Many NHS departments allow self-referral and do their own triage because going via the GP has become so difficult and TBH GP referrals can be so poor as to be pointless.

It wasn’t really ‘your place’ to say anything to anyone, but since you chose to why didn’t you direct your focus to the reception staff?

You did the right thing.

10 minutes in a local gov call centre if people are still talking to us, we risk trouble and having calls listened into to see where we went wrong of it exceeds time.

Unsure why people think a gp’s receptionist has all day to chat.