Why are so many GP receptionists rude?

[Jenna2212]

I don't think I've ever heard of a surgery where people have positive things to say about the receptionists. At a time when people are most vulnerable and in need, why do GP surgeries tend to recruit such hostile people to greet sick people?

Have you had any bad experiences with your GP surgery? Feel free to post below. 💊

Ours are usually ok and I always try and speak to them kindly, ask them for help rather than demanding something…
However there was one occasion when, if I’d of gone into the surgery, I would’ve been more than rude…

My eldest DD gave birth to a sleeping DD at 29 weeks. PM was performed etc and all the checks done but no reason could sadly be found. My eldest DGD, so desperately sad…
DD goes to the Drs for her post natal check, as this still needed to be done. DD checks in and the Receptionist peers over the desk looking at the floor and then announces in a loud and sneering tone
“what..! Haven’t you brought your baby with you…?”
To the waiting room full of mums with their new babies.
My DD just burst into tears and ran out!
I did write to the Dr to complain. Dr was horrified and we did receive an apology.

My DD was fairly young, but there was no need to speak to her in such a condescending manner.

Our girls are all lovely. It is difficult to get an appointment but they always try their best to get you in. Especially my DD who has some pretty serious medical issues including a congenital heart condition that almost killed her.
I have heard them being stern with patients but usually the patient hasn’t been very nice to begin with. Nobody goes to their work to be abused and the public are notoriously difficult to deal with.

Mine are awful. About 7 years ago I was being treated for depression. I was in a really bad place mentally that resulted in me totally breaking down one night and trying to throw myself off a cliff on to the harbour below. Thankfully someone was there at the time and stopped me by physically restraining me. I had bruises on my arms where they had to hold me so tight. They then walked me 6 miles home barefooted to make sure I was ok.
A few days later I was so scared of what I'd tried to do I plucked up the courage to ask for help.
I went to my doctor's surgery and walked in to reception. I was crying, shaking and obviously in a bad way. My friends sister was on reception and I blurred out ..'I really need help ..I tried to kill myself the other night and I'm scared'
She just looked at me and said 'Oh I'm sorry we don't deal with that here..you need to go to A and E.'
Which was 2 hours away on the bus. Absolutely shocking.
She did contact me personally afterwards and said she was sorry her hands where tied but if I did need a lift to A and E she could take me if she wasn't working.

No, you aren't sorry for calling GP Receptionists rough which you have firmly put me in this category.

Perhaps you need to move to a better area so you only deal with upper class GP Receptionists.

I’m so sorry to hear that. I hope that life is a little kinder to you now, my friend.

Surely she understood that you were speaking to her as a ‘professional’, because she worked in the surgery; rather than simply as your friend’s sister??

You weren’t asking for a bloody lift to the hospital. You needed to speak to a doctor.

DH was a partner in a GP practice. They received many complaints - not about the receptionists but about not being able to have an appointment when they needed/wanted it. Unfortunately there are more people wanting an appointment than there are available. Every appointment is urgent and important to the patient but not everyone can have an appointment.

Have you met the public?

The medical field is well respected and educated, the only job which needs no qualifications is receptionist- it attracts very self important people with no skills, more often than not.

I shall never forget the individual who belted across the waiting room "oi, Roses, your smear's overdue, do yer wanna come and book it?". The only other person in the waiting room was dd's Deputy Headmaster.

It was unprofessional and rough. I got up and at the desk icily and quietly said "no and don't ever share my personal information like that again". The GP was not impressed and apologised. I did not get an apology from the receptionist.

Regrettably I have come across more like that than better ones.

Most of my GP receptionists have been rude, insensitive and not giving a shit. However I’ve just always accepted that I’m going to get an attitude whenever I have to call in or pop in so it’s par of the course.
I think that they just get so much crap from parents so are immediately on defense mode when anyone calls. That’s how it feels. I wouldn’t want to do it so I respect the job they do.

We don't have receptionists. We have Care Navigators.
Their job appears to be to bavigate the would-be patient out of the door or off the phone as quickly as possible without a timely appointment or preferably without an appointment at all. They are ill mannered, brusque and obstructive. Dealing with ill people, distressed people appears to ruin their dayand disrupts the smooth running of the medical practice.

I wish I could find a single good thing to write, but I can't.

I seem to have got to 60 without encountering rude receptionists.
Maybe it depends how you approach them.

No in many cases it doesn't matter how you approach them. I am often asked what the appointment is concerning and I say that is between me and my physician-there is no reason the reception needs to know, they often not actually rude, just unhelpful and obstructive.

That's why I sometimes pay tonsee a GP privately. They practice from our local private hospital. The staff there are always polite and helpful. They appear equally busy with phones ringing and constant requests. The difference is that money changes hands.

But that is our job. In my practice we are not allowed to make the appointment without it being triaged first and then we are told when to book the appointment for. We don’t decide if you get a same day appointment or a routine one. If you don’t tell us what the appointment is for it can’t be triaged properly. We don’t ask you the questions for the fun of it or because we are being nosy, we have a form to fill out. I can assure you we have forgotten about what you called for by the time we answer the next call.

I had an infection from a miscarriage….very very dangerous and the receptionist told me to describe my whole miscarriage in detail to her (her words!)
she told me don’t just expect to be seen!! She was vile to me and when I cried she told me go have a cup of tea.
i asked her to show me some compassion and she was vile.
I could have died of sepsis
I made a complained, the manager listened to the phone recording and they were so apologetic and said she’d been taken off the phones and given more training (tbh she should have been sacked but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to care)

We also asked if I was pregnant FFS

It never bothers me to tell them what's wrong with me, they will see the notes anyway I imagine.

Funnily enough, the last few times I have been to the GP, I've put the symptoms through the website/checker, been advised to make an appointment and when I have checked the app, there has been an apt for the next day. Not sure if that's chance or it's more joined up than I think.

It is much better that most things can be done on the app now.

You cannot triage unless you are medically trained- so you saying it is your job to ask questions you are not qualified to use- really?
As receptionist you are the gatekeeper, not a medical professional. You say there is a form etc- then why do you get asked questions or one question or no questions.
Triage is a procedure used by medical professionals for prioritising cases in an emergency- this is done in A&E for example or on a battlefield-not in a GP's surgery.

We just take the patient details and brief reason for needing to see a GP, basically message takers. The GP triages list which they sort the patients to determine which order they should be dealt with. However if someone says for example rings and says they have central chest pain we advise them to call an ambulance, a sore throat the pharmacy that does throat swabs and antibiotics, fall and in pain Minor Injuries Unit, cut leg Practice Nurse, constipation or other common ailments on the list, pharmacy again. We are not medically trained but we have been trained in signposting.

It’s great when the app works well, but the app for our surgery will not let us make appointments; it then redirects us to making appointments by phone - at which point we are number 75 in the queue by 8.01. In addition, many elderly people struggle with technology and they are the demographic that normally needs the most medical appointments. It can be an absolute nightmare for them to get an appointment and it is not uncommon for them to give up and put up with sometimes excruciating pain.

I didn’t say we are the ones that triage nor that we are medically trained. We ask the questions that are on the form and then they all go onto the list to be triaged by the clinician. We are not the gatekeepers. As I stated before we don’t decide who gets the appointments, the clinicians do. We then just call to make them. You obviously don’t know how the system works because we absolutely do triage in GP surgeries

I agree, it is hard for the elderly. My mother's 88 and struggles. I do a lot and keep tabs on her appointments now. She had a serious heartnprocedure last year and before one of the appointments had to organise a blood test that had all gone on-line at the hospital. She phoned and explained she couldn't do it on-line and was told by the nurse or hca on the phone that an appointment wouldn’t be made unless on-line and she'd better find so.eone who could do it. Our NHS is disgusting in so many ways. I did it of course.

@RosesAndHellebores The online option or nothing is heartless.I wonder what happens to those who have no one to turn to for help.
Glad you were able to sort out your mum's issue.

The last time I physically visited our GP practice, it was crowded in Reception. One of the receptionist actually called across the reception area to me informing everyone else what items were on my prescription. Yes, really.

The aftermath wasn't pretty, as I descended like the Wrath of God on her. I involved the senior receptionist, the Practice Manager and also the CQC. Obviously, it didn't go anywhere because the receptionist claimed she was suffering from stress and got herself signed off for 2 weeks. Boo hoo.

She kept her job, sadly.