Receptionists at the Doctor's surgery

[CallingFromLondon]

AIBU to be fed up of all these jokes and complaints about them? "They don't have a medical degree, they just think they do". Or "Why do they ask all those questions?"

They ask so they can redirect you to the right place or person. If you ring up and want to see a GP about a rash, you're not going to want to see a GP specialising in mental health, are you?!

Sorry, rant over. I know I'm not being unreasonable.

@marymarkle I couldn’t comment on the layout of your surgery as I’ve never been there but where I work we sometimes have a treatment room available or we’d go into a corridor.

What I’m trying to say is I know I do my best to keep things private as do all of my colleagues, we have it drilled into us about the data protection act etc and we do our best to accommodate.

I would say to you, if you’re not getting that kind of service at your practice then speak with the manager to filter it back to the GP’s because we are doing what we are told to do.

Nothing to do with the questions they ask.
Somehow they just have a really bad attitude.
I've just moved and trying to register with new one.
3 different surgeries have upset me. One told me "oh no, you won't get an appointment "!? What?
& at least 3/4 others over the years.
I'm not particularly sensitive. I just feel that they don't get that people are worried, nervous, scared, Feeling shit/desperately ill when they come to the surgery.

The majority are obstructive and nosey. Are you one?

TheWickerWoman I know they are only doing what they are being told.
The receptionists do try and talk quietly and there is a floor sign to stand back from the person at the front of the queue to give privacy. I am simply not assertive enough to ask a receptionist to take me to a treatment room so I can tell them what is wrong. And there would be nowhere else. The corridor is small and has Drs and patients walking back and forwards.

The receptionist at my doctors have been wonderful!
My 3 year old needed blood tests quite urgently. They don't draw blood from under 5 years at my surgery; you need to go to the hospital. The hospital waiting list was 14 weeks for a blood test. When I called the surgery back to tell them that we had received an appoint that was 14 weeks away, the receptionist was furious. Told me to stay by the phone whilst she spoke with the practice manager. She called me back 20 minutes later to say that the nurses had agreed to draw the blood themselves and they'd order in the butterfly thing(or whatever the rubber tubing thing is called) used for drawing blood from young children. This was all at the time when there was a shortage of Emla numbing cream due to the manufacturer. No pharmacies in any nearby town had it so she went knocking round all the GP's in our surgery and the neighbouring surgery (2 different authors use the same building both with lots of gp's) to ask if any of them had any in their desks. They did. We discovered a medical issue with my son and if we'd waiting 14 weeks for that test it wouldn't have been good. But she was like a force to be reckoned with!

@CallMeSirShotsFired

They should have been reported, that’s really bad. They’re not doing their job properly and need a disciplinary.

*surgeries not authors!!

I understand why they ask, but they are not qualified to assess. I rang once, feeling dreadful and the receptionist asked. I told her I had constant pain in my stomach and was feeling clammy. She told me that 'emergency appointments were not for stomach bugs' and it would pass. My mum drove me up there when she saw the state of me and after they (very quickly) got me assessed by a doctor, I was sent straight to hospital. I had a hemorrhaging ovarian cyst - about 10 cm across (that's how is was described to me at the hospital.)

Having said that, the receptionist rang my mum the following day to apologise.

Since then they have been really good except for when they tell me they can speak to me regarding my son, when it is stated on the front of his notes that he has a learning disability and we are allowed to ask about him.

Receptionists do actually get quite experienced. Ours are asked to enquire about want us wrong but not insist. I have picked up a couple of appointments they have made and phoned the patient before the appointment and redirected them to a more suitable person than me ---a gp.
I also heard one of my staff telling a patient that she didn't think with the symptoms she had that she should wait fir 2 days to be seen and even though there were no appointments put a message in for the duty doctor (me) to phone her back. I got her up that morning and admitted her to hospital.

Another of my receptionists was alarmed at a baby who was very quietly deteriorating in its mother's arms, recognised it was breathing faster and called the GP through. Baby sent in by 999 ambulance.

Some are awful but we do give our receptionists training in certain medical conditions.

Yes it is not the qualified to assess that worries me. Fine 99% of the time. But it is that 1% that worries me.
Yes GPs receptionists are trained. But they are not trained to properly triage.
Fine with assertive people, but I know when you are properly ill the last thing you feel like doing is being assertive.

Ours never ask what it's for.

The receptionists at my surgery have always been lovely and I don’t mind telling them what’s wrong. You don’t have to be medically trained to be able to follow your practices standard operating procedure for specific situations. For example when I had a miscarriage at 6 weeks, I explained to the receptionist and she told me she would get me in for bloods straight away that morning with the nurse, as the standard practice is to take two sets of bloods 48 hours apart to confirm what is happening via HCG levels. I could’ve called up and asked for a doctor and said I’d prefer not to say what’s wrong, and that would’ve likely meant I’d have seen the doctor who would have taken bloods and been sympathetic, just as the nurse had been. Except that task can be done by a nurse, so there was no need to see a doctor.

I echo others in saying that receptionists are asking for a reason, not to be nosy and decide for themselves who gets seen when and where. They are instructed to do so by the GP and this is only to help you. If you don't want to tell them that's fine.

It does make me laugh however that I am a medical secretary for surgeons in a large hospital and the patients who call me are willing to tell me everything wrong with them in order to be seen by a consultant sooner. I do often wonder if they are that open with a GP receptionist. I get told all kinds on the phone.

Given that receptionists aren't medically trained what parameters do they use when triaging patients?

What criteria do they use when deciding whether a patient is worthy of an appointment or not?

I can’t speak for all drs surgeries or receptionists but I find the ones at my surgery to be very good.
It’s a tough job, dealing with people when they are feeling low, stressed and anxious about their health. For me I always feel they try their best to do all they can for you.

Yanbu.

They are told to ask so that they can ensure you see the right person. You don't need to be medically trained to do this in most cases.

They also have to ask because there are far too many people who go to the doctors when they don't need to, because they have a virus and want to demand antibiotics.

Jess And if someone is ringing up and does not know what is wrong with them? How do you decide if they should have an emergency appointment?

Agree with a PP - often I get barked at by a particularly unpleasant receptionist at my (shit) health centre because she conflates my lack of assertiveness with my problem not really being urgent enough to need an urgent appointment

I think it depends on the approach of the receptionist. My old GP receptionist made me tell her what my antibiotics were for over the phone in a busy office (although it was my fault, I should have made the call from my mobile) and was generally arsey.

My current GP receptionists are ace. I phoned up to make an appointment to discuss my PND and when she asked me what it was for, I told her, she was really sympathetic and said she was sorry I was having a tough time. In fact she treated the situation with more tact and empathy than her medically trained colleagues.

Weetabix I don't know the exact critter is but they will have one.

Most people will never be refused an appointment, but if for example you've got a cough and you've only had it for a couple of days, you might be encouraged to try the pharmacy first.

Also, often people will need double appointments and won't realise.

We have one doctor in the only surgery for miles. When I rang up for an appointment recently the receptionist asked me why I wanted to see him - what was the nature of my request? I'd not been asked before and was caught on the hop, and found myself saying, like someone from the 1950s 'it's a lady thing' (immediately seeing David Walliams in drag in my head). She said, it's just that we are now asking so that we can do a form of triage before making the appointment. Now, if it was a big health centre, with several doctors, I might see the sense in this. But there's only one doctor in a tiny wee surgery!

The receptionist at my surgery are great and I definitely don’t tar them all with the same brush. But I had a really horrendous experience with my mum’s GP. She had had a serious incident and needed an emergency appointment. When I phoned to try and make one for her the receptionist kept insisting that she didn’t need to see a doctor about that. My sister phoned too and they told her the same thing. Eventually my mum went along anyway to one of their open access surgeries and the doctor absolutely agreed that it was right for her to come in (and sent her off for a bunch of tests, one of which actually uncovered a serious issue with her medication). If we had listened to that receptionist insisting that we were just wasting her time, then my mum could have died

coral People are refused emergency appointments all the time.

coral And if you have a cough and are very healthy fine. If you have a cough and have COPD, are in heart failure and have swollen legs, that simple cough may be a very serious symptom.

I've only got good things to say about our receptionists (especially the ones that looked after my car-keys when DS and I were blue-lit to hospital, and then watched out for my MIL who came to pick it up for us and show her where it was parked!)

The only problem I ever had was back in my childhood surgery, in a small village, where telling the receptionist in front of the whole room that I was there for an appointment for the contraceptive pill took me a moment to gather myself and a deep breath! I do think that some kind of privacy shield like they have at some postoffices could help there!