What’s it like working in a surgery?

[Egghead81]

I have been offered a job working in a doctor’s surgery part time.

The hours are perfect
It’s a highly regarded large village surgery

I have no experience of working in a surgery!

What to expect?

Hopeful bump

I did for six months. I had always worked private sector until then. I hated it, a bunch of lazy jobsworths. No one ever did anymore than the littlest they could get away with and were always taking the Mickey with off sick, getting their 'entitlement'. I couldn't wait to get out back to the private sector.

@Sittingonarock

I did for six months. I had always worked private sector until then. I hated it, a bunch of lazy jobsworths. No one ever did anymore than the littlest they could get away with and were always taking the Mickey with off sick, getting their 'entitlement'. I couldn't wait to get out back to the private sector.

Thanks

I very much rate the practice manager and the colleague who interviewed me.

Was it very stressful?

Busy is the best word I can use to working in a doctors surgery. You’d be surprised how much goes on behind the scenes. It can be rewarding, with lovely patients, but you get those which can be demanding as well. To be honest, it’s quite an eye opener.

@Standrewsschool

Busy is the best word I can use to working in a doctors surgery. You’d be surprised how much goes on behind the scenes. It can be rewarding, with lovely patients, but you get those which can be demanding as well. To be honest, it’s quite an eye opener.

I’m quite excited

How long did you stay?

Not busy at all, they had a jobsworth for every little task. Not enough to do. Stressful only in that I hated it so much and needed to get away.

@Sittingonarock

Not busy at all, they had a jobsworth for every little task. Not enough to do. Stressful only in that I hated it so much and needed to get away.

Interesting again!

Certainly the GP receptionists at my surgery seem very busy indeed!

In fact you said “busy” is how you can best describe the job in your PP?

Oh sorry PP wasn’t you!

From my research and on mumsnet threads - it would seem... your experience may not be the norm.

Although I do rather like the sound of not Being rushed off my feet for once!

One of my siblings recently worked for a year in a GP practice in admin/reception and really enjoyed it. They were part of a lovely team. They were very busy and it was occasionally stressful due to workload pressures and/or abuse from patients. Other issues were it was really hard to arrange annual leave because they were so short staffed and leave would get cancelled sometimes and essentially be forced to take it at odd random times. Shifts typically started at 8am but they worked FT.

DH now works in primary care as a HCP and he has been working in a load of different GP practices and his experiences of reception teams are massively mixed.

Are you grumpy by nature op? If so I'm sure you will fit in fine

In all seriousness my go surgery is lovely and looks like a nice job that's busy but not stressful in the sense you don't take your work
Home with you. I bet they see some characters though and the people who live in the drs for a cough (pre Covid) would annoy me.

@MeadowHay

One of my siblings recently worked for a year in a GP practice in admin/reception and really enjoyed it. They were part of a lovely team. They were very busy and it was occasionally stressful due to workload pressures and/or abuse from patients. Other issues were it was really hard to arrange annual leave because they were so short staffed and leave would get cancelled sometimes and essentially be forced to take it at odd random times. Shifts typically started at 8am but they worked FT.

DH now works in primary care as a HCP and he has been working in a load of different GP practices and his experiences of reception teams are massively mixed.

Interesting around the annual leave - I should raise that with them as I can’t be flexible

Thank you!

My DH is a GP and the reception and admin team work generally work really, really hard. They have been taking a lot more crap during covid (still having to ask patients if they have symptoms at every visit etc.) This has greatly increased their workload. I know the clinical team appreciate them very much, but I believe there is a bit of an 'us and them' mentality. He says they can be a bit cliquey but that depends on the characters.

No such thing as perfect hours working in a GP surgery, you’ll soon find that your 8am start becomes 7.30 because you need to open up the surgery, or you don’t go home on time because you need to wait for the last patient to go home so you can lock up. Waiting around for ambulances etc or getting caught in a long call with a patient. Nothing ever runs to time in my experience, especially at the moment with Covid clinics adding to the workload. Plenty of people come and go staff wise so hours are always evolving and as others have said it’s hard to get annual leave as there needs to be enough people to cover the phones/other tasks on any given day. Answering the phones/greeting patients is only half the job, there’s a lot more on the admin side
That people don’t see and that takes a lot of time/work.

@MrsMoggy

No such thing as perfect hours working in a GP surgery, you’ll soon find that your 8am start becomes 7.30 because you need to open up the surgery, or you don’t go home on time because you need to wait for the last patient to go home so you can lock up. Waiting around for ambulances etc or getting caught in a long call with a patient. Nothing ever runs to time in my experience, especially at the moment with Covid clinics adding to the workload. Plenty of people come and go staff wise so hours are always evolving and as others have said it’s hard to get annual leave as there needs to be enough people to cover the phones/other tasks on any given day. Answering the phones/greeting patients is only half the job, there’s a lot more on the admin side That people don’t see and that takes a lot of time/work.

Would you not recommend? You didn’t enjoy?

@MrsMoggy

No such thing as perfect hours working in a GP surgery, you’ll soon find that your 8am start becomes 7.30 because you need to open up the surgery, or you don’t go home on time because you need to wait for the last patient to go home so you can lock up. Waiting around for ambulances etc or getting caught in a long call with a patient. Nothing ever runs to time in my experience, especially at the moment with Covid clinics adding to the workload. Plenty of people come and go staff wise so hours are always evolving and as others have said it’s hard to get annual leave as there needs to be enough people to cover the phones/other tasks on any given day. Answering the phones/greeting patients is only half the job, there’s a lot more on the admin side That people don’t see and that takes a lot of time/work.

Sounds like a badly run office. Not my experience.

Some of the job is satisfying when you can really help someone, but you need a thick skin ( me and my colleagues have been sworn at, threatened, generally treated like crap, blamed for any mistake by Gp/hospital, blamed for any referral waits) and need to be more flexible than you think with hours etc. It’s incredibly stressful at the moment with the extra workload Covid has brought, we are stretched thin as we have to staff the vaccine centres as well as the surgery. It was more enjoyable when we could see patients in person at the desk instead of explaining to frustrated patients on the phone and things taking much longer than they used to.

You do get some lovely patients though and families who are appreciative. And you’ll get lots of chocs and biscuits at Christmas 🤣 I’ve learnt a lot and I do find some it of it really interesting particularly the medication and tests side of things. There’s definitely more to the job than I anticipated when I started but that gives the day variety.