Why are GP receptionists so rude?

[cosmikdebris]

Every single one I've experienced,especially now I'm a mum, seem to act like guardians of the nhs. I've been trying to sign up to my local GP since JUNE LAST YEAR! They've lost my sign up forms 3 times, told me my information is wrong twice and straight up told me to 'sign up else where if i don't like how they practice' and have also told me I'm an irresponsible parent for missing my daughters first jab date (I missed it because they lost mine and her sign up forms may I add).

I tried another go slightly further away yesterday, only to be treated with more attitude and rudeness. I'm so desperate for some help with my mental health, and I've got a backlog of different physical things I need checked, I don't understand why they're all so eager to work against you! Surely they should be required to be calm and compassionate towards people, considering doctor's surgeries are generally full of unwell people.

I just don't understand it. Maybe it's more stressful than I think it is? Maybe I'm just unlucky! Or maybe they're required to put up a front so people don't waste the time of doctors? It's not difficult to just be nice to people though...is it?

Oh goodness, life would be easy if all we did was answer the phone and tell people to take a seat.

I'm a dental hygienist. I have a degree. I thought being a GP receptionist would be easy. It was meant to be a little part time job when my youngest started school and I was going through a divorce. I was in for a shock. It's a lot harder than I thought. It took me months to learn what I needed to, and even after years, we'll still ask eachother for advice.

An impression I get from a lot of posters on this thread is that they think they're above receptionists and we should know our place. Some posts are disdainful, condescending and just plain rude. Yes, there'll be bad receptionists. As in all walks of life, there'll be people who are horrid. But don't tar us all with the same brush. Before covid I'd make patients tea if they were late and had to wait a while for the doctor. I've hand delivered things so they didn't have to wait. I've checked up on patients after having to call ambulances. I keep a list of prescriptions that I put through as urgent, so I can call and tell the patient when it's done, when the patient has forgotten to put the request in on time. Etc etc.

Please don't think we are all the same, and don't go in to / call the surgery with the prejudice.

@KathleenTurnerOverdrive, thank you I am well aware that Dr's receptionists are employed by GP businesses and not directly by the NHS. However that has not stopped a receptionist telling me "this is the NHS you know" when I have had to say "I'm awfully sorry but I've waited for 55 minutes and if I'm not away by 9.40 I shall have to leave because I have a meeting at 10.45, at work so an hour away" cue eyeroll and aforementioned comment. FWIW I find it rather remarkable when I have an 8.30 appointment and watched the Dr swan in at 9.05 that no apology was given in advance.

Such a shame there is so little respect for the patie t and their time.

I'm most certainly not "above" a GP receptionist; I'm a long-term benefits scrounger. I don't take into account how easy or hard your job is, or whether I could do it myself, when noticing that someone's giving people unnecessary attitude, or not successfully completing tasks that are part of their job.

@KathleenTurnerOverdrive

There's a reason GP receptionists have this bad reputation, and it seems unlikely that that reason is vast swathes of the gen. pop. suddenly turning into demanding arseholes the moment they pass the threshold of a GP surgery.

I would say that a certain personality type would be attracted to the role. Not all fall under this category obviously, but I'd speculate a fair few do:

Power and status hungry, but with limited intelligence and qualifications who seem to think their proximity to Doctors gives them status and the ability to restrict access gives them power. It's the perfect job for a little Hitler.

Hear hear. I concur.

It's funny that you think all they do is answer the phone and tell people to take a seat in the waiting room.

What else do they do? It is basically a job that any competent adult educated to GCSE level could do.

I've had the odd helpful one, but most are dragons. Re vaccinations - I went through a tooth pulling saga to get them for one of my kids - so gp said to book next set, I asked receptionist who said to call the following week, I held on for ages when calling which I think is the norm to be told they can't book that far in advance and to try in a couple of days ad finitum. I then get an outraged call that I havent booked vaccinations that are due on a certain date, so I explain I've been trying and can she book them in whilst she's on phone - she said "no, we don't do vaccinations on that date, please call in a couple of days"! I had the same when I explained my son's nursery needed a new unopened inhaler in case of emergency - oh the blood sweat and tears. That's at the nicest surgery I've been to!

I agree op - I have always found them rude abs entitled

I don't think you can lump all GP receptionists in the catagory of being horrible and unhelpful. I have had experience of some very nice and extremely helpful receptionists,but have also been on the receiving end of some awful behaviour. There was one particular woman at my GP's surgery who was ghastly. She fancied herself something rotten and would swan around as if she was the manager. She was ride,bitchy and unhelpful. I had several run-ins with her,it always seemed involve my repeat prescription requests going 'missing'. Thankfully,she was the exception rather than the rule,and to my delight,she left the practice after a couple of years. All the receptionists there now are generally pretty good.

I don't think you can lump all GP receptionists in the catagory of being horrible and unhelpful

No one is.

some very nice and extremely helpful receptionists

It is telling that people are tripping up over themselves to say they've experienced helpful and nice receptionists. Shouldn't that be the norm for anyone in a public facing role? Or the bare minimum for interacting with others in society?

In some of these cases it sounds more like the receptionists are working with bad systems. The receptionist won't have chosen a ring on the day only system for example, that's on management.

I have to be honest there’s a couple at mine who, if I recognise their voice on the phone, I hang up and call again! One of them I think is absolutely loving having to dig deep into why a patient wants an appointment - the one time I needed an appointment this pandemic (and unfortunately for me it was something intimate and Doctor said I was right to go) she laughed as she pressed for information and initially refused after laughing. I ring again - the next one was amazing. I put in a complaint.

I don’t like my profession being painted with the same brush so we can’t paint all GP receptionists the same.

I think it’s a classic case of any have had to harden up to abuse and it comes off as not so great - not necessarily excusable though.

I should add that with my situation and the ongoing phone calls and appointments that followed, the staff I worked with at the surgery were amazing.

Of the 4 at our surgery (one who deals with prescriptions and the other 3 and desk dragons guarding appointments), only 1 is personable and friendly.
Recently, we've had some shocking cock ups, quite frankly if I wasn't skint, I would seek legal advice as they have put both ds and DP at risk.
For starters we had a text about a virtual medication review for DS. All well and good but the medication they wanted to check was changed 7 years ago. He hasn't been prescribed this medicine for 7 years. How on earth they got that wrong I do not know but when I, understandably asked what the hell they were playing at, I got told it was fine. Well it isn't going to make me feel they are keeping track or showing care.
I then had to call as his consultant had asked for him to take a new tablet. This was sent to them on 13th November.
Usually the hospital would sort prescriptions but due to covid they aren't, but I was told the GP will sort swiftly
They received the email straight away.
I rang by the end of the week to ask where it was. They told me as they hadn't put it online yet he couldn't have it. I asked when would they put it on to be shouted at and told she would do it when she was ready!
We had to wait a month.

Now, we find DP has been put in the wrong group for the Vaccine. He has a lung condition that due to his age puts him in the current roll out group. It was diagnosed 5 years ago. It is degenerative
According to the GP though, they are looking at when he was diagnosed. Not how he is now as they have failed to follow up since. They are refusing to look at how again and put him in the right group.
The woman I spoke to was so rude. Told me it was "at the GP discretion" who they out forward. Told me if I didn't like it to move surgery. I told her I was within my rights to contact the GMC, people his age with this condition have died when catching the virus, he should have had a shielding letter too. She told me if I go to GMC our entire family will be kicked off their list.
I tried to tell her, appeal to her, that I'm understandably worried and it's on their own NHS website that he should have it but she said "enough with the son stories, GP said no". This GP is new and had never met DP.
I think giving them as was planned a day of medical training to weed out people who don't really need an appointment as an emergency is dangerous, many already think they are a GP by default.

Our receptionists are fabulous, health visitors could be a bit patronising 🥴

We aren't allowed to ring to make an appointment anymore we have to fill out an online form which takes ages, then that gets submitted and then a GP rings you back and if you're very lucky you 'may' get an appointment.

Not read many PPs but you should complain to a higher authority about this matter. Where I lived previously for 20 years I had this sort of thing. I also did not like the doctor I always had to see. I think he dominated the practice. I found out later he had had to resign - but all those years he went unchecked and I really hated him. He was very odd and unhelpful.

What a pity a fly on the wall documentary couldn't be made of the work of a GP Receptionist then you'd see we don't just tell people to sit down and answer the phone to book appointments. If you knew what type of telephone calls we receive and make to resolve patient's queries and how long it takes perhaps you wouldn't be so dismissive.

It make me laugh that this is about rude receptionists when there is a small number of posters, who time and time again like to put the boot in, even changing their user name, who themselves are breathtakingly rude.

@TroysMammy
I couldn't agree more. The level of ignorance towards a role which apparently people of limited intelligence can do is breathtaking. And yet these same posters claim that receptionists aren't beneath them. It's laughable.

What a pity a fly on the wall documentary couldn't be made of the work of a GP Receptionist then you'd see we don't just tell people to sit down and answer the phone to book appointments.

Well here's the opportunity to do just that. What else is it that receptionists in run of the mill doctor's surgery do?

Excellent idea, you could call it something like GP Receptionists: Behind Closed Doors

Confidentiality would be a problem though. This is a short list of what we do in a day.

Scanning letters from hospital onto records, setting up nomad trays for vulnerable patients, ordering prescriptions, giving out prescriptions, contacting District Nurses to visit patients who are housebound, sending off incontinence referrals, adding on new medication recommended by the hospital, liaising with the hospital because the writing is so bad on the recommended medication form, putting people's request to consult with a GP onto Ask My GP, ringing patients back as GP has done them a script as a result of the consultation, preparing files for people who have transferred to another surgery and those who have passed away, receiving new patient files in and putting them together if the paperwork has been received in a Lloyd George, re-printing blood forms for people who have mislaid them, answer numerous queries on the phone, contact the Cluster Paramedic to request he visits patients on behalf of the GP, monitor diabetic annual review patients and contact them to have blood tests and then book them with the Practice Nurse, give patients the answer to test results, normal/speak to Doctor and advise what they need to do, liaise with the pharmacy for meds that are on manufacturing delay for an alternative, re-print prescriptions which have been sent to the pharmacy but they have mislaid them, phone patients to book in for a covid jab, contact parents to book children into Baby Clinic, book appointments, cancel appointments, re-arrange appointments, prepare and send paperwork to the Coroner, advise the pharmacy that our mutual patient has passed away, mark our records, send a sympathy card, book people in for medicals, clean the surgery surfaces with anti-bac wipes, clean the toilet if a patient needed to use it, telephone patients if we do not understand their writing on a prescription request, update telephone numbers and addresses, drop off letters at the post box, make tea, wash dishes, ensure the GP's have couch rolls etc in their rooms, photocopy, email, get out files for the GP's to do forms for outside agencies, put files back.

There is probably more we do but I'm exhausted thinking and typing, like I am after a 10 hour shift.

So basic administration tasks.I don't doubt it is high volume, but all the tasks you've named are a variant on a theme.

KathleenTurnerOverdrive so what. Your belittling attitude stinks. There is always one person and that is you. Just because you have a PHD you think you are better than everyone else. People like you make me so angry. In the spirit of MN - ODFOD.

To be fair I can empathise with Kathleen's response to this irritating attitude of "people say we're rude but you don't know how hard the job is!"

Lots of jobs are hard, and I'm sure there are many that are harder than being a GP receptionist, but that's not a good reason to be rude and unpleasant.

Why on earth would you take a customer facing admin role if you can't be calm and pleasant to people? People who are at their most vulnerable. And it is an admin role, no more no less. Practice managers have a lot to answer for as they don't seem to rein in shitty behaviour.