Abusive GP Receptionists Towards Patients

[SonsaraSunrise]

I have worked in customer service and there is no excuse for bad behaviour of any kind towards patients, even if they are stressed out by their jobs, it is part of the job and with the correct training they should be able to manage their work in the appropriate manner.

It is important for GP reception staff to be polite, caring and considerate towards their patients, as patients are unwell, already suffering, already emotionally distressed and feeling fragile and some patients are also mentally ill and there are some patients that are highly sensitive.

It does not cost anything to be kind and polite to another human being. It is what is expected by society, but not what we always encounter in life.

I have come across some very rude receptionist and she is a senior receptionist and her behaviour is absolutely appalling and atrocious and she abuses her power, by denying people appointments, cancelling people's appointments without their permission, hanging up on patients she does not like or has a grudge against, it's completely distasteful.

Also, any complaints made against receptionists fall on deaf ears and are covered up by her associates and employers including the practice manager (who is also incompetent in dealing with any complaints) and also the doctor who owns the surgery (who is arrogant and has a real attitude problem and has no idea how to run a practice), his partner is also a doctor is completely incompetent and does not know how to do his job and is endangering lives.

There is definitely something fishy going on at the surgery [POST EDITED BY MNHQ to remove link to online reviews of a specific surgery] this bad behaviour has been going on since 2009 to date and has never been address, yet they say they do employee appraisals on a regular basis which clearly must be doctored in some way by colleagues which is fraudulent behaviour in my opinion and should not be done.

As you can see from the complaints, the complaints are fairly consistent and I would like to know how this has been allowed to go on for so long and why has the Practice Manager been so incompetent and not addressed any of these issues and why has the senior receptionist employers allowed her to be working there for the last 11 years?

Obviously as a former patient this behaviour has been going on for a while and the comments posted since 2009 are the earliest posts available online, that does not include all of the offline complaints in addition to this as, also not all patients use online or know how to use the online system to make a complaint.

Also, with this particular surgery, any complaints made against receptionist staff get de-registered and mistreated further as a vendetta by the same receptionist, as I have come across some stories from fellow patients.

Anyway, the bottom line is, GP surgeries have a zero tolerance policy for patients to abide by and they are de-registered if they are abusive in any way or form. However, I feel the zero-tolerance policy should work both ways and GP receptionists should also respect patients in the same manner and they are in a profession where they need to show care, concern and consideration and not doing so can aggravate and worsen some patients health and well being, especially those who have been abuse, aggressively treated and bullied in the past and go to the GP to seek assistance, not to be re-traumatised for a second time.

So what I propose is a petition or a campaign, for receptionists to be polite and after 3 strikes of complaints from patients, they should be dismissed and forbidden to work in the health care industry again if they are unable to improve after being given a chance to do so, because this shows ingrained repetitive bad behaviour and should not be tolerated or accepted by anyone and any GP's who condone this type of behaviour and accept it should also be penalized in some way for allowing such behaviour to continue as they are responsible for the employees they hire within the practice and also responsible for their staff training.

Also, bad behaviour which is culturally displayed within a practice requires serious addressing and should not be allowed to continue as this not only affects a patient, but the community as a whole.

By petitioning and/or campaigning against bad GP receptionists, we can stamp out this type of detrimental behaviour towards patients and any of those good, polite GP receptionists that do exist (as I have met them in my new GP surgery), will not be affected as they are already doing their job as they are supposed to and meeting patient expectations and needs and doing their job as it is meant to be done.

Also as patients, I think we owe it to complain and have a right to complain when we have been wronged by GP receptionists and I think it would also be good etiquette to also praise and show our appreciation by thanking and reminding those good receptionists that they are doing a tremendous job so they can continue to feel they are on the right track, so that any of those odd bad patients they do come across do not make such a bad impact.

Also, I think it is important for GP receptionists to be educated on different people's personality types, because some people who may display what is considered 'bad' or 'difficult' behaviour and labelled as such are not necessary 'bad' or 'difficult' but can be apart of their ill health and illness and a display of their emotional distress, which is why they are seeking assistance from their GP in the first place and patients should not be struck off by GP receptionists or GP's themselves because of their incompetence and lack of understanding, care or consideration.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions on this matter...

PMSL, giving GP's receptionists medals?! Most of the ones I've ever encountered have been rude, arrogant battle axes who think they are more important than they actually are. They have no medical training whatsoever but still think they should be allowed to dictate who should have what appointment and when.

An example. I have IBS, during a particularly bad flare up I managed to get an appointment with a nurse practitioner who suspected that I may have had either colitis or crohns. She wanted me to get blood work and for me to come back and see her the following day for the results.

She accompanied me to the reception, told the receptionist that she had to find an appointment for me the following morning and left them to it, the receptionist then huffed, puffed and whinged loudly in front of me and every other patient in the waiting room ( very unprofessional anyway) about how much of an inconvenience it was for her do this this, and how a nurse practitioner "shouldn't have the power to be able to things like that". Even though unlike the receptionist the nurse actually had had some kind of medical training and for all the receptionist knew the nurse could have suspected me of having cancer or anything.

This is only one of many examples I have of receptionists at my surgery with superiority complexes thinking they are something they are not I.e trained medical professionals.

I have maryz. Doesn't feel within spirit really does it?

There's two sides to every truth op. How do we know yours is accurate...? To do this to a person well IMO it's very mean.

I've still never been abusive when distressed.

Ime distressed patients were never the abusive ones.

If the OP has a grievance, it's better to write a clear, brief (brief) post about it, and try not to sound obsessed and a bit unhinged....

Just sayin'.

I have been spoken to rudely by GP receptionists on countless occasions. Just for calling them within the window that you are allowed to call them in. I am always so polite, I am angry with myself afterwards. They make you feel terrible. On the rare occasion I get a polite one, I am so grateful.

You sound totally irrational OP.

Change surgery if it bothers you so much.

Reported too. Is this allowed. Op must be a journalist or something. Too many anon reviews and giving too much information about the surgery.

Wow axe to grind much? I think you have a personal problem with this receptionist and are trying to drum up support to vindicate yourself.

Out of interest, how many of the complaints on that website did you write? Also were you off listed for unacceptable behaviour?

I would love to know if the OP is a former patient because they left or got kicked off the books...
Just wondering as we were told we could hang up on a patient if they became verbally abusive.

Thanks for the reports; we've edited the OP now to remove that link. Please flag up anything else you think we ought to see.

While waiting to collect a repeat prescription at the GP surgery today, the receptionist was patiently and repeatedly apologising and explaining to whoever was on the phone that she couldn't answer their question because she wasn't a doctor but that she would get the doctor to call them back. Judging from the way that the conversation suddenly ended, it looked as if the patient had suddenly hung up on her.

As for receptionists asking medical questions, they are trying to help you and the doctor.

Have you got chest pain right now? Then you need 999, not an emergency appointment this afternoon.

Have you got a gynae issue? Then they can book a double appt with Dr X, rather than Dr Y because he's not done Obs and Gynae for years and does the eye problems in the surgery.

I wish surgeries would publicise how they run. Might have been a day where people knew. Today they don't and there's so many branches of expertise it's impossible to guess .

If surgeries did proper information patients would be happier.

They do.

They all have to have a patient information leaflet, which is probably online as well.

I'm a HCP. In almost twenty years I have never received one official complaint. I am respectful, compassionate and kind. I have lots of lovely thank youbcards and letters from service users and a few even credit me with 'saving' them in some way. (I'm only saying this as I don't want the OP to think I 'must' be at fault when she reads the following paragraph).

In my career I have been physically and sexually assaulted, been spat in the face, threatened with rape, threatened with torture and death, stalked, called every name under the sun and threatened.

I'm not including people who were behaving that way as a direct result of their illness - people who were paranoid and genuinely thought I meant them harm etc. I'm talking about people who may or may not have an illness but their abusive behaviour was separate to that.

People who were abusive because I would not (or could not) meet their demands for; drugs such as diazepam (because they abuse them), because I couldn't tell the Police to 'let them off' domestic violence charges, because I reported them to SS for giving their child methadone and many more.

Illness can SOMETIMES be a reason for abusive behaviour but more often, It's unrelated and they're generally abusive and unpleasant people. Even in those cases where behaviour is understandable, abuse of other people is NEVER ok.

Why do A and E depts, many health centres and GP surgeries have screened off reception areas?. I even know of A and E depts and H/C that have to have on-site security. Because people think HCPs are there to absorb any amount of abuse or violence because they're somehow fair game and they think they have carte blanche to be vile because they may or may not have something 'wrong' with them at the time.

This is in AIBU but it's not an AIBU question. If you have a problem with your GP's practice then imo you need to complain about your practice, not try start a nationwide campaign concerning ALL reception staff.

It's almost impossible to know how many people are experiencing major problems with surgery staff. The ones at mine are bloody fabulous - friendly, considerate, helpful and do their best to give people suitable appointments. Sadly with all the cuts and extra demands on the health service, it is harder to get appointments now at ours, but that isn't the fault of the reception staff. I'm a carer and have to deal with service users GP practices. Again, I find most very professional and pleasant.

If I had a problem with my surgery or a service users practice, I would ask to talk it through with the practice manager and if necessary take it further through the correct channels if I felt it was needed.

If you're asking AIBU to start a nationwide campaign about this then I'd have to say I think you are.

This is hard. On one hand I think all public facing jobs are getting much more abuse thrown at them. My job involves hearing complaints about all public bodies, and the way people think acceptable to address those in public facing roles is getting worse and worse.

However we get so many complaints from both POV and in most cases, unless there is an independent witness there is no way of proving what was said, how aggressive the person was, how rude the receptionist was...

Although usually I am against an increasingly monitored society, I think GPs surgery would benefit from high def video and audio CCTV. Even the threat of it being used may deter some aggressive users and if not there is indisputable evidence to support either side. Any strike system without adequate proof is going to be open to abuse to anyone with an axe to grind.

All I can add is that the ones at our surgery are lovely, all of them. They seem very well trained in sensitivity. At the surgery where we used to live however, there was one who was a lot nosier about specifics than I'd have liked. (Me: "I'd like to book a home birth". Her: "Oh, we don't encourage those!")

We have fantastic GP receptionists at our practice.

YABU and I disagree with your proposed petition/campaign.

I've had to come back to this, because I am so cross. I am not going to respond to the OP, the original link is to a ridiculous website, where you can anonymously write whatever shite you like with no comeback, the staff/doctors cannot respond or explain or defend themselves because (1) its bloody anonymous and (2) patient confidentiality. Its ridiculous.
I feel the need to explain the "asking personal questions bit". Ours are specifically not allowed to do this EXCEPT in the following circumstances. Now at the moment, GP is in crisis, there are not enough GP's and workload and demand is crazy.
So when all our "on the day appointments" have gone (and this will be in excess of 40 appointments). We ask them to ask for a "general complaint and a contact number". This is so we (the GP's can triage), we just cannot see everyone who insists its urgent (and really believe me those who insist in cannot wait till the next day, or the next booked appt in a week, are sometimes utterly absurd), but we also dont want to not see someone with chest pain/breathing difficulties/unwell baby etc. But the sore throat and diarrhoea for a few hours can often be managed with tel advice etc. They are not "triaging" or being medical or giving appointments, they are helping us to manage the demand. We do the same for those ringing for "urgent afternoon appointments" (those are even worse, for eg, just finished work/picked up from nursery and has had a headache today etc)
So if I am busy seeing 20 patients "who insisted on being seen the same day", and I see on my "urgent list" - 1yr old, drowsy and diff breathing, I can ring reception and say tell them to come straight up, if I see 25yr old sore throat, I can call and see if they really need to be seen straight away.
Can you not see that? Is that really so unreasonable. Most GP's are desperately trying to manage an unsustainable and frankly unsafe work load, and this is one of the ways we try to do so.
Being a GP receptionist is a hideous job, I sometimes walk unexpected into our back office and it is not unusual to see a receptionist upset or crying after being spoken to like a piece of shit. Would you do their job?

I have been lucky but the we do have good GPs here on the island, however I draw the line about being asked personnel details and being asked why I want an appointment in a crowded waiting room in front of other people many of them I know, I consider that a breach of medical confidentiality and have asked to be taken into a private area (after all my pharmacist has a screened off area for consultations) I don't consider such a request rude or out of order as surely receptionists are bound by the same confidentiality rules as a medical professional, but one old bag took exception to my request so I reported her.

Is this a joke? You sound absolutely bonkers.

Fair enough if you have a problem with your GP surgery but most of us are pretty happy and your three strikes rule is ludicrous.