To feel uncomfortable about friend (GP receptionist) looking through medical notes

[Monsteraobliqua]

I have a recent friend, who is a receptionist at my GP. She wants to train as a nurse.

Her job at my GP predates our friendship. She called me the other day to rearrange an appointment and whilst on the phone, started looking through my notes, including some blood results I was waiting to discuss with the GP and said 'I'm just having a look af your bloods, everything is fine'.

AIBU to feel really uncomfortable about this? She has no training to tell me my bloods are fine, the test was not to check whether a level of something is simply low or high, they are so the GP can assess how adjust my medication. I have also had several health issues I don't want her knowing about, including some mental health related side effects of said meds and some contraceptive related issues. She had no reason to look at my notes, just the appointment needed changing.

I have actually just changed to a new GP as I know she sometimes discusses patients with the practice nurse as work experience and I don't want her discussing me. I also feel myself distancing myself from her as a friend.

One of the issues I mentioned is anxiety so I suppose I'm just wondering whether I am overreacting here.

@Eeeeeeeeeeeek I’m a receptionist and choose to work away from my area .It would bother me also . I’m not sure if people are aware but you can actually request only doctors see your notes. The down side is nothing can be done quickly . But that’s absolutely your right

[quote Sunnydays999]@user194729573 she could probably see they were fine as gps write notes next to them like normal satisfactory, review at gp appointment[/quote]
When she was at university my DD had a part time job, hospitality, she was clearing up one night and got a needle stick injury. She got very upset, few years ago so HIV panic was high. She came home for the holidays and uni told her to get a blood test so she did. Phoned for results and receptionist said it was clear. Great, we were happy all was well. After Christmas she got a message from uni after she told them she was clear, they wanted it in writing for her file. So I trot round to GPs to request they do a letter. They look in her file, there is no result in her file. I speak to practice manager who says it was an error. I said fine but I want the result ASAP, she contacted the lab and it was expedited. It was clear but it might not have been, she might have been out celebrating and passed it on, if the result had come back positive after getting the negative result it would have been very hard for her to deal with, she was already in a bad place after months of worry (back then you couldn't get a test for months)

My point is I never accept a receptionist giving me results of tests as I don't trust them.

ancientgran goodness what a stressful experience, wonder what had happened, if they had looked at someone else's results by mistake. Glad your daughter was fine in the end.

@sunnydays I appreciate they will have access to blood results but not full notes. I know my GP surgery don't they can see certain things but not all. Medical records online have levels of access.

@Monsteraobliqua

ancientgran goodness what a stressful experience, wonder what had happened, if they had looked at someone else's results by mistake. Glad your daughter was fine in the end.

We were told they had looked at an old blood test as she was anaemic about a year before. Why anyone would think she was phoning to get results that were a year old I can't quite imagine.

It was horrible for her to think she was fine, after months of worrying, and then to find she was back in limbo for 24 hrs. It still makes me angry to think about it.

IMO you’re right to be concerned, OP.

A friend of mine used to be a dr’s receptionist, and she used to divulge (and sometime laugh about) all sorts from patients’ records, e.g. piles. As it happened we lived quite a way away, didn’t see her very often, and didn’t know any of the people concerned, but I thought it very wrong.

What concerns me here is "she wants to be a nurse" and she "sometimes discusses patients with the practice nurse as work experience". Unless she is actually on a clinical placement from an Academic Institution where she is on a clinical course this should not be happening in a place where she is otherwise employed in a non clinical role.

Sorry, total unintentional drip feed I should have made clearer but she has told me she looks through patient notes to see examples of management of other conditions

In her role as receptionist this is totally unacceptable.

Information Governance training, which she will have undertaken, is clear that access to NHS records by any worker must only be on a ‘need to know’ basis - this means the worker has to access the record so that they can carry out their duties.
Otherwise, access is totally unacceptable, and she is misusing her role and authority and breaching Information Governance requirements.

She is not there as a student nurse, therefore no role for learning - and even if she were, any accesses would only be on a ‘need to know’ basis to support her placement and development as a student. She would not be trained or permitted to just look up any record she wishes.

Students and healthcare workers are not permitted to look at any record they fancy; if she is being supported to do this by her Practice colleagues, they also need to be reported.

Most healthcare workers will declare if there is a conflict of interest during the course of their work; and an arrangement made with their manager that they will not be involved in a family member’s care unless there is an emergency, potentially.

I question that she is being supported to operate in this way.
Her role as a Receptionist is not to learn how to manage conditions from patient records; if she wants to do this, there are many high quality web resources.

Hope this helps.

Thing is, I don't know any details of records she might have seen other that that she has said she's been looking so I wouldn't like to report on that basis and maybe cost her a job in this climate (her circs aren't the easiest), if she has wrongly been told it is ok for her to look by someone senior. Without going into identifying details I suspect this may be the case.

Tbh, for good or bad I am happier just staying out of this and distancing myself from her.

That said, I am pretty uncomfortable that she took it upon herself to interpret the test herself and advise me, (feels a bit like playing at doctors and nurses when it is real patient information) so I may give some anonymous, untargeted feedback.

Why don’t you have a chat with the practice manager and say to them that you have a personal friendship with their receptionist so for data protection purposes you would like extra security added to your notes so she cannot access them.

She won't have interpreted the test results herself. She isn't qualified to do so. She will be reading a note or something, the tests will have been checked by a clinical member of staff. I've had loads of GP receptionists tell me blood results were clear or if I needed to see the GP.

I work in a very similar role to your friend and if I came across a friend, I'd pass it to a colleague. Family is a no-no anyway but as good practice, none of us go into records of friends either. I would contact the practice and ask them what their policy on this is. Nothing wrong with finding that out. If they say that anyone who is friends or family of a receptionist gets passed onto another member of staff, then you know she is doing something she shouldn't be ie; accessing your notes when she knows she isn't to.

@BlueTimes

Why don’t you have a chat with the practice manager and say to them that you have a personal friendship with their receptionist so for data protection purposes you would like extra security added to your notes so she cannot access them.

And how is this supposed to happen? You can't stick a password onto people's records. And any notes would only come up once you went into the record.

Admin staff in this type of role know they are not supposed to access records of someone well known to them. A password shouldn't be needed because they are supposed to be professional about it.