To ask why people think it’s okay to abuse NHS staff?

And her misunderstanding of various posts are perhaps key to why the caller lost his cool

I think his language was extremely aggressive but if he hadn’t used that particular offensive phrase, was it perhaps acceptable to convey his frustration using other terminology ? Clearly he was worried about a relative dying and felt he was getting no help at all

I agree.

While it is not acceptable to be rude and abusive to staff providing a service, I feel that OP’s defensive replies on this thread speak volumes about the underlying attitude of a lot of NHS staff.

Yes, I politely asked a nurse where I was in the system, next steps etc when I'd been bumped pillar to post for 4h. The automatic reaction up to that point had been to just issue me with a curt instruction, and sometimes no instructions at all - "sending you down to urgent care", and turning away as if I knew where urgent care was.

I hear you. Fellow NHS admin here and the amount of abuse is staggering. The amount of patients who want to cancel a hospital appointment last minute and then angry when you won’t just “squeeze them in” to an overbooked clinic. And expect the consultants I work for to be on hand 24 hours a day to answer a query. I’m sick of being open and friendly and helpful to just be abused.

Agree. I am gobsmacked how little effort there was to communicate with me what was going on while I was in hospital. I was fully alert, yet was treated like an object rather than an intelligent person who would want to understand what was happening and what the plan was

Agreed, our GPs are brilliant. The receptionists are a nightmare to get past.

GP staff( not so much GPs) and mental health services are particularly dreadful and seem to be a law unto themselves. As regards MH services I simply don’t understand how they get away with what they do.

I'm just impressed someone answered the phone!

My Cardiologist is also a self important, dismissive, little man. I had to fight for tests (bloods, echo) which he allowed with a condescending tone to humour me.

I then had a call to go into hospital for an urgent angiogram & treatment 🙄.

When you woek in a customer facing role you realise how unintelligent vast amounts of people are.

I don't think anyone thinks it's OK. I think you get to talk to people who are ill, worried, stressed and quite literally at the end of their tether trying to get help, and that makes people behave badly.

I am surprised NHS staff don't get more training on how to support worried people without inflaming the situation. I'm not saying that's what happened in your example OP, but IME some NHS staff do seem very good at making a bad situation worse in the way they handle disgruntled "customers".

Frustrations overspill due to long waiting times 😣

at a guess smaller number of people ?

It is. Our doctors surgery has a sign reminding patients to be respectful. Our local post office has had to put up a sign saying abuse will not be tolerated and they reserve the right to refuse to serve any customer that is abusive. I never used to see signs like that anywhere.

As a nurse my team get abused on a daily basis. We visit housebound patients yet they spit at us, hit us, verbally abuse us, make inappropriate remarks…….yet we can’t send them elsewhere - there are no consequences to their actions for them - but my staff are at breaking point with it

I was chatting today about how the BBC and the NHS are on the wrong track with their self-congratulatory posters and ads.

The BBC reminds me just how much content I don't use or value. The NHS ones seem like spending money to whine about how hard done by they are, when they could have spent money on making the service more effective.

And the patients are no better!

I’ve never verbally abused anybody and don’t condone it however I think there is a massive issue with the NHS thinking they are above any other service and the British public should just put up with shit service with zero explanation, no apologies or attempts to rectify service that often just isn’t good enough.

I also think NHS staff should realise they’re not treated any worse than other sectors. Try retail and education.

I’m disabled and have spent more time than I’d like in hospital and attending appointments.

i am never rude to nhs staff or private staff because I dare not - some have been horrendously abusive to me even when I am being polite so god only knows how they would behave if I was rude.

i now go private where possible because at least you get a modicum of politeness from the HCP that way.

yes, I have made multiple complaints and received multiple apologies.

It goes both ways.

My daughter's consulant is very rude, if I spoke to a NHS staff member like the way he does to me...I'd be pulled up on it.

He's just unpleasant.

Couldn't agree more. When I was bleeding all over the floor in a & e having a miscarriage and wailing like a banshee with a broken heart only one kind soul looked like his heart was breaking for me and did everything he could for me. All the other staff treated me with pure contempt and told me to stop making so much noise and wait until Gynae is available. I wanted 10 hours, got no sleep or food then told them to fuck themselves i'd rather grieve my baby at home and left AMA. I've never hated a whole room full of people so much in my life as I did that day. Lots of them were standing round chatting all night despite doing fuck all. Lazy uncaring bastard's.

No one thinks they are entitled to their doctors personal medical information 🙄 patients are however entitled to be told a reason their appointment was cancelled. My dental appointment was cancelled because my dentist was sick. That's fine, I hope he gets better soon and it's a whole lot less of a kick in the teeth than "he just couldn't be bothered today" or "someone's rearranged the calendar and not told you so it will be next week now instead". If patients are told their doctor is sick they will be a lot more understanding and less likely to be rude than if they think it's yet another admin fuck up after a long line of admin fuck ups or he just couldn't be bothered. As such they are much less likely to be hostile when receiving the news.

Also, that poster did not claim that you need to abuse your doctor for that information. You've made that up. She said it would make upset, frustrated and in pain patients less likely to be rude if you give them a reason for cancelling their appointment after they have waited a long time while being unwell. And she is correct.

Obviously it's never ok to be abusive towards medical staff no matter how unwell you are. But I have been abused my several doctors to the point where I won't allow one to touch me anymore unless my husband is present to advocate for me and I needed a psychiatrist to get me through my antenatal care after years of pain and dismissal at the hand of gynaecologists and even then a vile midwife shouted at me for starving my baby and made me feel 2 foot tall when I'd requested the feeding team three times after I gave birth because my daughter couldn't latch. So as far as I'm concerned unless they're nice as pie, talk to me with the utmost respect and ask if they can touch me every single time before doing anything, they can get fucked. If I wasn't so painfully polite I would tell them that, but I am polite and have never treated them the way they treat me, mostly through fear tbh because there's a power imbalance.

NHS here too
we get loads of rude people I tell them I’ll terminate the call if they don’t calm down!
my friend works at Tesco tho and says it’s just as bad in there I think it affects anyone who deals with people!

Firstly, I have never said I exoect to be told about somebody's medical information. However, the words "we apologise for the unavoidable inconvenience which is due to extenuating circumstances, would be appropriate.

Secondly, I have never abused anybody and don't believe anybody should be abused and fund your extrapolation, based purely on yiur imagination, quite extraordinary.

The NHS is a massive,huge mess, which unfortunately I have to deal with on a regular basis. Sheer incompetence, basic mis communications are ALWAYS dealt with by someone insisting 'its not my fault'. Don't care. Can tell you whos fault it definitely isn't . Mine. Seemingly grossly overstaffed,by people who have zero interest in helping sick people. Fed up with the useless,freeloading bastards.