GP surgery rang my husband after I ignored their call

[MyAquaCrow]

First of all I am new here so please bear with me. I am overdue a smear, and my GP surgery tried to call me twice today to book it. Both times I was unable to pick up the phone, so after the second missed call they then dialled my husband's mobile phone. He could not pick up as he was under the kitchen sink at the time, but the fact that they called him has really angered me. He is listed as my NOK, but his number is not down as a contact number for me. Is this right?

that's absolutely shocking!

I'm not in the UK but I'm curious why the rates of smear tests are low? Do most women /teenage girls have the HPV vaccine in the UK?

I remember after Jane Goody passed a way there was a lot of talk around cervical cancer.

The exact same thing happened to me - really weird.

I was cross as well.
My dally husband told me not to complain as it was good they managed to get in touch about something that could be serious!

I was like grrrrr

That isn’t how data governance works.

In my experience, due to the lack of dignity afforded to women, combined with a low level of skill of some nurses who take the test.

If I have had a test taken by a nurse, they have struggled (retroverted uterus), made me bleed on one occasion, caused me pain. Since I was in my mod 30s I pay to have these tests. It's notable that a gynaecologist encounters none of the aforementioned problems or causes me pain.

I can't believe there are actually people who would hide their health issues from their spouse & object to their GP including them in their care & treatment.

When I had life threatening sepsis due to an asymptomatic uti it was the GP calling my Dh that saved my life. I was too sick to take the call having phoned feeling unwell 10 mins previously. When I couldn't answer the call back if he hadn't called my DH who was in the garden not realising how sick I felt I probably wouldn't be here today. As it is he was told to rush me to hospital & I was on IV antibiotics within 30 mins of my symptoms. I never thought for a second about sepsis.Thankfully I had no lasting effects. I can't imagine what would have happened if the GP took the attitude of owing to confidentiality 'it is the patient I need to speak to' & he hadn't called my DH.No thanks,my GP can discuss anything he wants to discuss with my DH about my health as long as nothing is hidden from me.

Well, yes, but maybe some people are not getting appointments because the receptionists are busy calling others over and over!

This is terrible.

Referring to my post above it was the receptionist who said I'd get an urgent call back owing to my symptoms including feeling really sick and a blue rash on my legs. As it is my GP called my DH when I didn't answer & thank God he did.

Get off your high horse, phone the surgery and book your smear test.

when I worked in the NHS, we were not allowed to leave voicemail messages with any details on, even on the patient's own number because we had no way of knowing who would hear the info. It was the same when my late husband was ill

Are the rates particularly low compared to other countries?
Most countries don't do the whole smear test campaign things anyway. Where I live, women just go every year to the gynaecologist to get whatever is needed (a hell of a lot more than you'd get in the UK).

But that was an emergency and obviously your GP recognised it as such, not being able to contact you within ten minutes of you ringing the surgery. The normal procedure is to give permission for another person to be included in discussion of your medical issues, and this is noted on your records. DH and I have both done this, and every single time our GP has rung and DH is not available, they have been careful to ask who I am, relationship to the patient, and ID me with a date of birth and address before disclosing any medical information. Anything else is a breach of GDPR.

But they didnt leave a message with DH? So how do you know they were calling him to reach you??????

OP's issue was not life threatening.
There was no need to contact her next of kin, which I presume is really a 'person to contact in an emergency anyway'. This was not an emergency.

Also, just because you're Ok with your husband knowing everything doesn't mean everyone is and the doctor cannot know who is who.

OP's DH needs to call back to check what the call was about and if it was about OP she should file a complaint.

Thanks but I wouldn't have cared less about breach of confidentiality & thankfully on this occasion neither did my GP. At that point there was no permission given but the GP had more sense than to waste time with red tape.

That's a sackable offence at the surgeries I've worked at

what do you mean?

my gp surgery called me once as there was no response from dh, we were together, they apologised but i passed the call over to dh

I doubt they would have discussed anything with him.though - and, if he had picked up, just asked if they could speak to Aqua Crow.

I'm not suggesting that this is OPs situation, but for anyone in a controlling relationship this could be disastrous. Accusations etc of why was the doctors calling you, what haven't you told me, you've cheated, you're keeping secrets etc. Calling someone's DH is not a harmless thing without consequences, not for everyone.

They should not have called anyone except OP about OPs health.

The point is, they don't know why the GP surgery called her husband. They would go through a "to call" list when they had the time. Quite easy to think it would be alphabetical order and they called the husband about something else entirely.

First of all they should only leave a voicemail stating who and what it is for if you have a personalised voicemail? If it's a generic voicemail then they are breaking the rules straight away.

And they should never call someone else on your behalf unless the phone number is specifically on your own records.

Normally on the system they have your name / phone numbers. They are listed as Home / Mobile / Alternative number / Work etc. If for some reason he has been put on there in the past as an "alternative" contact number then fair enough, but if not then it's a firm no.

With regards to another suggestion - it is coming towards the end of March which is what GP surgeries have to work towards each year to ensure all their "jobs" are done in order to receive their money.

If his med review is due in 2 months, it may be just before the end of March. If they tick over into 1st April, they won't get paid. So normally most practices look at 2-3 months in advance to ensure they don't miss people.

This is for things like medication reviews for cardiac issues, asthma reviews, mental health reviews etc etc.

They may have simply been working down either an alphabetical list, or an address list and contacting people in order to get these booked in.

So don't necessarily assume it was about you.

Just opt out of smears, call the surgery or go in when your passing and ask them to opt you out.

FWIW lots of reviews are coming up early, no idea why but one of mihe has come up to review, 2 months after the last one. So that might be why your husband was called, nothing to do with you or your smear.

Wheres the evidence that the surgery was phoning your husband about you?

Did they leave a message on his phone and if so what did it say?

So many frothers all ready to charge down the surgery and make complaints yet no information to back this up so far. Unless Ive missed it