Eyeroll moment of the day...

[MarmaladeSideDown]

I'm sitting here at home and the landline rang but stopped before I got to it, so I dialled 1471 to find out who it could be (family members often call it as my mobile reception here is rubbish). It was a local number and seemed slightly familiar to me, so I searched online and discovered it was my GP surgery, so I rang them to find out what they wanted.

The receptionist answered saying how could she help so I explained about the missed call. "Well it wasn't me", she said. Oh right, I thought. Here we go.

She then asked for my name and I said that DH and I both lived here and gave her my name and his. "Well, no-one has called you" she said so I suggested that perhaps the call was for DH. He has a hospital appointment tomorrow for investigation into an ongoing condition, so I wondered if it might be about that, but since he isn't here at the moment I thought I'd better find out in case he needs to contact them. "Well I'm sorry" says she in a very officious voice. "I can't give you any information about anyone else". I pointed out that it was they who had rung first, and I was just trying to be helpful in calling them back in case it was urgent. Not good enough apparently, and she refused point blank to even tell me whether it was him they were trying to contact.

What a pointless waste of my time that was.

Has anyone else felt themselves rolling their eyes out loud at the brick wall of officialdom today?

I can see! The receptionists at ours are really good. I went yesterday, happy to get an appointment this week and they gave me one 45 minutes later. I also got a physio appointment ten minutes after the doctor.

They're really nice and helpful.

Our previous ones guarded appointments like starving Rottweilers.

Well done to your surgery @SinnerBoy It is lovely to hear that there are some good ones out there.

Ours treat you like they've caught you trying to break into a nuclear warhead storage facility under cover of darkness... 😂

@MarmaladeSideDown at least they spoke to you (admittedly rather rudely), it took me three weeks to get a call back from the Drs surgery, god knows how long it takes to see a Dr in person

They go to a special training camp OP.

I'm imagining the phone call to arrange a job interview now.

Interviewer - Hello there, is that Ms X?

Applicant - Who is this? I can't give you that information over the phone until you tell me who you are.

Interviewer - I can't tell you who we are until you tell me your name.

Applicant - (with considerable reluctance) It is Ms X, yes.

Interviewer - Good, well, I'm calling from the doctor's surgery, we received your application for our receptionist vacancy, and it seems you already have experience as a school office receptionist and as customer support officer for British Gas. You might be exactly the person we're looking for. We'd like you to come in for an interview. Would you be available tomorrow morning?

Applicant - I have no availability for tomorrow.

Interviewer - Oh, er... and the day after?

Applicant - I can't book you in for the day after tomorrow, you will have to phone again first thing in the morning.

Interviewer - I don't think we need to bother with that - you've got the job!!! When can you start?

Applicant - When would you like me to start?

Interviewer - We can't really arrange a date until you tell us when you are available.

Applicant - Oh. Er... <long pause while brain reboots> Can I check and phone you back?

Interviewer - Yes of course, but you can only phone the surgery between 8am and 8.01am every weekday apart from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, when you can call between 8.02am and 8.03am unless there's an R in the month in which case you have to wait until 9.02am and if you can't get through you will have to phone back the next day.

Applicant - Fantastic, sounds like my kind of place, I can't wait to start!

What your exaggerated satire is describing is a natural consequence of limited GP appointments and NHS targets colliding. To give an example: a target along the lines of "95% of patient appointments will occur within 24 hours of the patients' contact with the receptionist" drives the surgery to offer only same-day appointments, which means everyone trying to phone at 8am to get an appointment and all blocking the lines, eventually getting through to find that all the appointments are gone. It becomes really really hard to book a routine medication review if you work because your willingness to wait a few days or even weeks for an appointment after 4pm conflicts with the target, so you end up contributing to the 8am telephone scrum even though your case isn't urgent.

More sensible targets would allow surgeries to adopt sensible appointment policies, but that would require the target setters to understand what patients actually need.

I’m sure there are targets for using urgent care or out of hours though.

I struggled to get an appointment a medication review as I was having side effects.Finally got an out of hours appointment. Comment from the GP I saw : ‘Oh you’re coming from X surgery. We seem to have loads of people coming from there’.
My next option would have been 111 and I’m pretty sure I would have had an appointment with urgent care which would also impact targets….

No shit. Had funnybone-ectomy, have we?

I get your frustration @MarmaladeSideDown But as a number of posters have said they do have to stick to confidentiality. Annoying as it is!

I actually couldn't even confirm my husband's dentist appointment the other week. They said 'Oh no. sorry. Data protection!' I thought 'it's an appointment for a filling for fuck's sake.'

But yeah, you're not being unreasonable to be annoyed.

What really pisses me off - and it's happened a few times - is when the GP rings at about a quarter to six on a Friday evening - and doesn't leave any message 'because data protection.' So we don't know who the hell the message was for, and we can't find out for 3 days.. And we're wondering and worrying all over the weekend.

We use my mobile phone as the main contact number because I've always got it on and I've always got it charged. DH works different shifts and he sleeps at funny times some weeks. So he has his phone off a lot of the time. So the GP, dentist, bank, anyone who needs to speak to me OR him, rings my number.

The GP practice have rung my mobile phone at 5:30pm and 5:45pm on a Friday afternoon quite a few times. And I have missed the call. I don't notice that they have rung until 6:30pm or so, and I don't know what they wanted ...

So I end up fretting and worrying all weekend. Wonder what they wanted and who the call was for ... When I ring them back or pop in on the Monday, all I get is 'I don't know who called you!' Just nothing. No help. Nothing on the medical record. Just 'I don't know who called you.'

And then about a week later a letter arrives - sometimes for me, sometimes for DH. saying 'you need to make an appointment with a doctor on the phone to discuss your blood test' or something. Why was that not on the record?!

!

Autistic. What's a "funnybone"?

The bit on the inside of your elbow that really hurts if you knock it.

But I used it here in relation to the poster not finding something funny or amusing.

@LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway It feels like I've already said this about 20 times, but I'll say it again anyway.😂I wasn't asking them to tell me anything.

I wanted to tell them that if they were trying to contact someone who lived at my address and who wasn't me (and there are only two of us living here so it was totally obvious), then perhaps they could try their mobile number instead. I wasn't asking for information, I was trying to tell them something.

I know you’re annoyed op but this thread has really made me laugh. You have a way with words.

The UK is simply fucked and getting worse
Many sympathies op! Been there myself and it's so frustrating isn't it ?

Fairy nuff! 😃

' phoning the Vatican to speak to the pope '
! 😆
It is these days isn't it with the endless questions and security details and people who can't tell you anything at all ever. Mostly because of breaches of security and whatever else
Not sure what they expect us to do sometimes

@MarmaladeSideDown ,I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but are you aware that the receptionist can not give out personal information?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪😕.

Funny bone-etcomy is going in my mild insults file to be dished out at a later date.😂

Well, I could tell that you were trying to be funny, hence I said "exaggerated satire". You're not quite ready for Live At The Apollo.

The can say who they're calling for though, and leave a message for them to call back!

I've posted before about my old GP surgery, who called and left multiple messages on my landline voicemail regarding midwife appts, missing midwife appts, test results - both GP receptionist and the midwife herself. I wasn't pregnant and didn't know who the messages were for at first, they were most unhelpful and rude about it when I reported it to them.

Just a string of failings by that GP surgery to be honest, glad when I left there.

You will be happy to know they have opened a new bereavement department I had to deal with them last year they are very calm sympathetic and (unlike the rest of the company) efficient

There is confidentiality and stupidity 🙄 they can say they need to speak to Mr x that's all not anything personal honestly my Dr's have rang me to confirm my address before nothing medical just paperwork

Yes! Had to take a urine sample from my mum to the doctors to check for UTI.

sample 1 - tube with white lid duly taken in. Hear nothing for a week so go in docs, wasn’t enough urine in tube to do the test.

sample 2 - tube with white lid taken in. Ring for results. Nothing abnormal to report but noted there was higher than usual amount of protein. Yes, mums diabetic so there probably would be, no uti then? Oh we didn’t test for that. That was the point of the test…. You need a tube with a red lid

sample 3 - tube with red lid taken in. Oh the doc can test for uti in the surgery if you’d like to wait? Yes please. 10 mins later, sorry it needs to be in a tube with a white lid for the doc to test.

what a palaver 😆

I've had that, which is why I always insist on a print out/card from them and keep it in my wallet.

I often wondered whether gp receptionists went to a special school where they learned to be rude, unhelpful and obnoxious, our post office staff went there too.

Although new staff at both now and they're lovely so it must have closed.

I had a similar call with my bank. I was out and got a voicemail about some potential fraud so called them straight away. I hadn't set up the tele banking security so they asked my loads of questions I couldn't answer like how much was in my account and what day did my council tax come out, then refused to speak to me further.