AIBU to think people feel entitled to be rude to GP Receptionists?

[alpacasandwich]

I've got a job stacking shelves in a supermarket. I love it. People are mostly kind, friendly and above all respectful. If someone asks me where something is, they are so apologetic about me abandoning whatever I'm doing.

By my third shift in a GP surgery I'd been sworn at, regularly told I was responsible if someone died before they could see a GP, been given the line "I pay your wages", been hung up on over the phone multiple times, I barely went 20mins without someone angrily eye rolling and shouting and being hideous.

Why do people treat people like that? I always heard retail is hell, but the odd moany customer is the exception. As a receptionist you're treated with absolute disdain no matter how hard you work and how nice you are. I used to cry in the toilets.

AIBU to think people feel entitled to behave this way, maybe due to the idea that receptionists are evil witches?

I am overly polite to GP receptionists because they do a very difficult job and get constant abuse for it. Also because if someone is trying to help me and is providing a public service then, yes, I am grateful for it and to them for doing that job. Regardless of whether I have paid taxes for it. NHS staff shouldn't have to have verbal abuse or harassment just for doing their job.

OhTheRoses there is a huge shortage of GPs which as far as anyone can see is only going to get worse .even in the leafy suburbs the doctors are being stretched to breaking point by staff shortages( doctors and nurses) ... doctors who are closing in on retirement but don't want to leave their colleagues in the lurch may reduce their days...doctors who are parents may choose part time working ( this is not a situation confined to doctors) and young doctors coming in look at their older colleagues and consider their own mental health and put more store by work life balance. You won't find many shirkers.Hours worked that you can see published on the front door bear no resemblance to actual hours worked when the demands of paperwork/ management/ teaching:/education etc etc are taken into account.
Lots of people in this world work very hard and GPs are no different. Partners are quasi self employed and as long as their responsibilities are covered they can choose to pay salaried doctors to cover some of the workload.. it is true that a lot of salaried doctors are part time.
The only way for this to change would be for a lot more GPs to be trained but at the moment young doctors are not attracted by the working conditions and there are job vacancies in all fields.
You mention salary which of course is good but money tends not to be a motivating factor for young medics... they are usually among the brightest students and could have chosen other more lucrative paths if that was their main motivator. Older doctors of course have mortgages and children and so like all of us become more budget conscious.

The majority of receptionists I've dealt with have been great. I will never forget the sheer kindness and efficiency of one who spoke to me when I thought I was having a miscarriage.

However some have been awful. I've worked in a GP's surgery (not as a receptionist!) where they were so rude not only to patients but each other that a new employee left after one day. The practice manager didn't care at all.

Some of the problems are that some assume that because they know how the system works because they deal with it every day everyone else does. So to take the confidentiality issue, how are patients expected to know that they can ask to go somewhere private or just say it's personal if no-one tells them?

I work full time, third sector in a professional job. To give something back. I earn £64k for that. I don't understand your point.

I think it works both ways. I've had GP receptionists be rude to me before. I've also had one mess up my test results and say everything was fine when it wasn't.

Might I also venture that if the brightest medical minds had chosen to take more lucrative paths they would have had to ensure their staff were much more polite to their clients. More lucrative fields involve customers paying directly. They chose to take their business elsewhere when support staff speak to them like shite and are generally unhelpful with a can't be bovvered attitude.

GP services are going to get one neck of a shock when the NHS model converts to a continental model. We have a second ho.e in France and the difference is beyond belief. For that reason I truly believe the NHS needs to be completely reorganised.

I strongly believe that most of the issue is peoples' perception that receptionists are gatekeepers, deliberately unhelpful, jobsworths and power trippers - all things people have mentioned on this thread.

Therefore if I said to a patient "I'm sorry but prescriptions take 48 hours to process", I'm a jobsworth, power tripping gatekeeper trying to fuck up their live and getting off on the inconvenience. Not a person abiding by policy.

If there's no appointment for two weeks, "I'll be dead by then, you never have any appointments, I pay for the NHS". Again, I don't set the appointments book and my computer login prevents me from adding extras.

I used to bend the rules where I could. I'd ask what the medication was, so I could try to get it put through urgently (e.g. a prescription for thyroid medicine vs. a script for viagra). Then I'm a nosy busybody who thinks they're clinical staff.

There's basically no way to win.

Don't forget that GP receptionists are patients too... we do understand how frustrating it is that you can't get an appointment outside your working hours - we have the exact same problem ourselves but we can only offer you what we have available on our screen, if there isn't an appointment available there's literally nothing we can do about it.

The majority of our patients are lovely, polite, and understanding if we can't accommodate them straight away.

Then the next largest group is those who are visibly/audibly annoyed, lose their temper but will then say "sorry I know it's not your fault I'm just really frustrated" and that's ok, we're not happy with the system either and it's totally understandable to lose your cool about it.

It's the small number of patients who take out all of their anger on us, tell us we're nosey and lazy, swear at us and look down on us because we're in a minimum wage/entry level job. At our surgery receptionists will only be short tempered with the last group and I seriously doubt there's anyone out there who would put up with that kind of abuse consistently without getting sick of it.

It's massively frustrating to not be able to give people exactly what they want. We're not horrible people, no receptionist takes pleasure in telling a vulnerable, unwell person that they're going to have to wait a few weeks to see a doctor but we can't invent appointments that aren't there!

Ok, I'm sure you're great. But I asked for an evening appointment, not urgently, just the next evening appointment they have. Receptionist said they keep them for men because men prefer not to take time of their work. I said I preferred not to take time off work as well but was offered one "after school pick up". Not sure how to work that one out.

WTF @ keeping them for men?! That's ridiculous.. I would complain about that.

There's basically no way to win.

This. Probably the reason lots of public sector staff leave their jobs in a nutshell.

Nonibaloni - Definitely write a letter to the practice manager that's absolutely unacceptable and if the reply is that that's a genuine practice policy I'd take it higher.

To be fair though noni, that is terrible and I would also complain about that (politely, through the proper channels).

I did but it was laughed off in a you probably didn't get the joke kind of way. After a series of complaints of phones not being answered, it's open plan, it was obvious when they were just being left to ring, they now lift the phones and sit them on the desk until they are ready to talk. Which means obviously lots of people hang up because there's no one there. I've also complained because I saw an elderly man unable to use the auto mated check in so ask for help at the desk. He asked and waited literally 20 mins, then the receptionist said , well you're too late now and sent him on his way.

I agree the public can be horrible and entitled but gp receptionists are a law unto themselves. I'm always polite to them though.

@Nonibaloni - probably no help but none of that would be OK at our practice, might be that you're just unlucky and at a terrible practice in which case I'd shop around for somewhere else.

My whole family use the same practise and it's a long running joke.

I actually don't know why we haven't moved - probably because we don't see the dr that often so have flashes of complete frustration but forget about it for a few years.

I worked as a receptionist for years and used to fantasise about saying what they did.

@Nonibaloni You can go to this site and type in your postcode and it'll show you all the options in your area and you can read reviews etc. Hopefully helpful if you do decide to move.

If it were me I'd want to move sooner rather than later as if someone in your family did become ill with something longer term you'd want continued care and from what you've said it obviously wouldn't be ideal to have to deal with that surgery frequently.

Still can't believe that they keep their evening appointments for men, thought we were done with the 1950s.

I understand it takes 48 hours to process prescriptions bit I don't u understand why when admin have caused a 12 day delay by or sending it as per instructions when my dd has a consent note on her file why they didn't bend over backwards to put their cock up right. I collected the prescription after it didn't show up because I called into the practice. Special item so I phoned the pharmacy so they cd order capsules. Pharmacy called and said no caps and needed another prescription with tablets written on it. Phoned practice but they couldn't intervene with pharmacist (20 mins ringing). Dr then x examined and asked how many pharmacies had I tried for capsules as they were cheaper. Explained I 'd visited one because her staff had created a 12 day delay and I was just as busy as her, at work and was two miles from nearest pharmacy. She begrudgingly wrote a prescription (price difference £17 per month). Said it would be at reception in an hour. Phoned pharmacist who couldn 't order without the prescription because tablets were a special. Arranged to pharmacist to collect (20 mins). Phoned practice to make sure script was at reception and they confirmed it was. (20 mins). Pharmacist called from practice to say it wasn't. I had to leave work at 3.30ish and to be 45 minutes to the practice and yes I did read the riot act and the receptionist engaged in a slanging match. Then took script to pharmacist, tablets orders (20 mins). Went back to collect another 30 mins.

That was two and a half hours of my time sorting out an admin:reception cock up and the Dr (salaried) had the audacity to complain about being charged an extra *17 pcm for a drug for my 18 year old's MH. MH with which she has attempted suicide and for which CAMHS refused to help before that because she didn't meet their thresholds

So yes, patients do get pissed off especially when a GP whines over £17 when the practice is aware that £5000 has been spent on private mh care because the NHS can't be bovvered. I don't hear complaints about patient suffering, I hear a lot about hcps working too hard. It irks.

Do you really not understand why a patient .might get a bit pissed off?

I think it's hit and miss with GP receptionists, but my cousin detests them and I can't blame here as her son nearly died. She asked for an emergency appointment by phone in the morning and the receptionists told her to give him some calpol by the afternoon he was even more poorly so she took him to the doctors and argued with the receptionists about getting him an appointment, they finally relented and not even 2 minutes into the appointment, the Dr asked for an ambulance to be rang as he had pneumonia.

It's one thing for receptionists to ask information for triage reasons but when they start refusing appointments because of their opinions, that's absolutely unacceptable.

I don't think the crisis in mental health services is because people can't be bothered, although I understand how it must feel like that.

*Cousins son had pneumonia not the doctor, my grammar is really appalling. I'm so sorry!

I am on the side of the receptionists--and no l am not one but do work in GP land.
They are abused on a daily basis and have to take a whole pile of shit from "entitled patients".
The ones who l work with are brilliant and make my job a whole lot easier.
to all GP receptionists out there.

i still don't know why a GP complaining of the price of meds is the receptionist"s fault???

As an NHS receptionist, I can tell you that the public are rude. End off

It isn't the receptionists fault but after the receptionists have royally cocked up I expect the practice to be more proactive about sorting out the cock up and not telling me the script was at the desk when it wasn't.

You really don't get the concept of customer service do you alpaca would you have reasonably expected me to have been in a good mood after that? Do you not understand how things would work better if practices were more helpful and less jobs worthy. In my opinion a member of practice staff should have phoned the pharmacy and given the go ahead for the tablets to be ordered. Don't I'm think that would have been reasonable in the circumstances?

If you really can't see why I was cross then I'm afraid I can understand why people are ruder to you than others.