From GP practice managers

[Bagamoyo1]

m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR2ZqCHbGq9Tn0WtOYD5B8y8CnjF-MjkmH2tAEz42wEArKz-pl0QRb5s9hI&v=3ru4QhVZ2a8&feature=youtu.be

I don't think anyone is cowering away at home stitched I think that's a bit inflammatory tbh.

May be they aren't "cowering at home" but that is the impression they are giving to their patients, surgeries locked up like Fort Knox and phones not answered.

I'm not going to read the full thread because my mental health honestly won't take any more GP-bashing.

A patient came to our practice with a gun

A patient attacked 2 of our receptionists with a cudgel.

It's rare for a day to go by without someone swearing at us

I have been punched, kicked and threatened with being stabbed.

We have been open throughout Covid, seeing patients face to face.

I've already worked 48 hours this week.
I'm going to work on my day off tomorrow, to support our vaccine programme.

All I read in the media and SM is how shit we are.

Very very close to jacking the whole thing in. GPs have 3 times the suicide rate of the general population. I understand why.

A £50 charge for seeing a GP would concentrate people's minds.

Every thread where anyone says they are slightly upset or stressed - "see your GP". How many GPs do people think there are? How many hours of time you people think the state should pay for to discuss all their childhood issues?

The NHS should more or less be an in and out treatment service. Stress, cosmetics, acne, lifestyle surgery, gender reassignment - pay for it yourself.

On the flipside, there is a lot of unionised laziness in the NHS

I also have terrible experiences with my GP receptionists.

When my son was critically ill, one of them reduced me to tears with her unpleasantness and rudeness.

@ Stitched77

There needs to be balance as with all things in life. Financial and medical resources are overwhelmed by demand. How would more wrongs in the form of abuse, threats, violence and other aggravated criminality resolve the imbalance between supply and demand? This is a once in lifetime medical pandemic war and if we all play our role in following the science as to personal Covid risk mitigation - then the sooner a return to pre pandemic norms regarding general medical treatment expectations. The more these idiots cause trouble the worst the outcome for all. People need to get a grip as doctors and healthcare professionals will not let you die by the wayside but prioritise treatment according to need. All the medical practitioners I know have been outstanding and very approachable over the past year massively professional saving lives (Covid and non Covid) despite these minority of challenging patients. Look after yourselves and that is always the best medicine before needing assistance from others. Just have a look at Indian subcontinent and see what a non existent healthcare system can cause.

It's sad that GP receptionists feel threatened, no one should feel like that at work.
And it's also sad that people in some cases resort to being rude and threatening. I believe it's desperation that drives some to this because some receptionists just don't have the skills or temperament to handle anxious patients. I have first hand experience of real rudeness from GP receptionists and being spoken down to. Nice I have never threatened them in return but I have made a complaint. Some people are at the end of their tether though and probably react badly.

Receptionists should be trained better, to be polite, helpful and nonjudgmental and sympathetic.

@ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia

Wow - it is like a word salad of government-issued pamphlet of covid compliance fear....

• "medical pandemic war"
• "all play our role"
• "following the science"
• "personal Covid risk mitigation"

I stopped after that. You are out of your tyrannical mind.
Also, the failings of the NHS are not new

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow that’s awful, I am 100% not disputing that. But the same could be said for people in any public facing job. That doesn’t make it acceptable but working in a GP’s doesn’t make it worse.

The population have been reduced to rats fighting over a scrap of bread. This sums up the GP provision in this country. People are hurt on both sides because they're at each others throats. It's the system that's wrong.

If people are willing to pay they will get a good service.

People phone up asking for ear wax drops, head lice treatment, antihistamines, etc etc etc. If time wasters like these self-treated phone lines wouldn't be as clogged, and we wouldn't have to ask receptionists to ask people what their ailment is

Out of interest, if all the appointments are gone, what is your suggestion(s) for what to do about all the people that need seeing?

Yet the UK was way way ahead with the vaccination programme

That wasn't down to the GPs or the receptionists.

I fortunately don't live in the UK, but over the last year I've been shocked at how many people on mumsnet haven't been able to see a doctor or even speak online to one. It is pretty dangerous to leave an entire country without medical attention.

@Coyoacan

Yet the UK was way way ahead with the vaccination programme

That wasn't down to the GPs or the receptionists.

I fortunately don't live in the UK, but over the last year I've been shocked at how many people on mumsnet haven't been able to see a doctor or even speak online to one. It is pretty dangerous to leave an entire country without medical attention.

Of course it was down to GPs and receptionists. Who do you think is administering the vaccines? Boris and his cronies?🤔

I have to @Coyoacan because that is so insulting. GPs are providing this vaccination service at a loss and getting abuse and ingratitude in return

@Taliskerskye

Why didn’t the GP practise hire more staff then. On the phones in Covid times working from home to help deal with the extra onslaught of desperate people trying to get help. GPs are privately funded. Many companies didn’t make any money, people took pay cuts etc. Just to keep going. Why would that not apply to GPs

Because people don’t want the job. Simple as that. We can’t find new staff. We have staff wanting to leave because it’s too stressful, and we beg them to stay because we can’t replace them. We try to employ locum doctors or urgent care nurses - there aren’t any. This isn’t just in Covid times, this has been a problem for a while. A few years ago all the doctors in my surgery took half pay for 6 months, to try and clear the overdraft. I don’t think people realise what a state primary care is in.

@Taliskerskye

You are private companies run for profit. In this pandemic my company lost 70% of its profit. I didn’t pay myself. My staff took 20% pay cuts. Did you?

I think you’re missing the point. All the money in the world can’t magic up doctors and nurses. They just don’t exist. They don’t want to work in primary care.

I’m talking about people who just answer the phone and book or explain they can’t book appointments.
It makes people irrationally angry that they can’t get through to a living soul.
If reception apparently earn minimum wage then surely they can manage that

Do you spend 2 hours repeat pressing redial to try and get through to ANYONE

@Dunlin

Christ. A video full of people (mostly women) recounting the abuse they routinely receive while doing their poorly paid jobs and every second post on this thread is yeah, but...

Shame on all of you.

Primary care is utterly broken because demand spectacularly outstrips supply. Thread after thread after thread on mumsnet GP bashing and people still don’t realise that things are shit because there are simply not enough primary care appointments to meet the escalating demand. The system is fucked and the people responsible for that work in the Houses of Parliament, not your local surgery. The people working in primary care are madly bailing out a rapidly sinking ship, and they’re getting abuse because their not bailing hard enough, and the quality of their bailing isn’t good enough. Anyone on this thread criticising the service who don't have first hand experience of working in it have zero clue how hard surgeries are working right now. Zero clue.

My husband started at his practice at 8am today. He’s still there now. He’s probably got a year or so left in him working at this pace before he jacks it in. He’s 46.
To be honest threads like this make me wish primary care would hurry up and break, then it can be privatised and I’ll get a husband back who isn’t at work all the live long fucking day, comes home exhausted, lies awake at night worrying about what terrible mistake he might have made because he’s seeing so many patients at break neck speed, and then spends all weekend worrying and feeling sick about Monday coming round again.
We might get an increase in his salary too if it all goes private, which would be splendid seeing as it hasn’t happened for over 10 years in this house.

Don’t bother @ing me with stories of woe about your particular GP surgery not giving you exactly what you wanted, and that giving you some moral justification to feel it’s OK for the poor bloody receptionists to receive a load of abuse.

Agree 100%

I don't think anything is ever going to change. The GP receptionists and practice managers will continue to think they are so hard done by and should be applauded and adored for their thankless, heroic jobs and the public will continue to think that their must be some special aptitude test in rabid ratbaggery that they have to pass to get the job. Our surgery is closed for training one afternoon a month. I don't know what the training involves, but it's certainly not manners and customer service, I suspect it's quite the opposite - how to be as obstructive as possible in the rudest way possible.

MissLucyEyelesbarrow

People are frustrated by how difficult it is to access a GP appointment but you should read the thread, everyone is appalled and no one has condoned abuse of GP surgery staff.

However, this, "GPs have 3 times the suicide rate of the general population. I understand why." is an awful thing to post in this context, it's no less manipulative than the patients who say, "if I die it will be your fault".

The list of abuse you and your colleagues have experienced could have been written my many people in public facing roles, it does not make it acceptable but it is not unique. Supermarket staff have also put up with a lot of abuse through the pandemic, working with far less protection and unable to manage their exposure to covid.

I worked in ICU for many years and have my own extensive and hair raising list of abusive incidents. The Christmas day a relative pinned me against a wall and tried to strangle me was a particularly low point but there were many others involving weapons, physical assault, the whole unit locked down and protected by armed police, a violent rampaging family that had to be dealt with by riot police; it's stressful. I left 10 years ago and never looked back, I can recommend it.

@Staffy1

I don't think anything is ever going to change. The GP receptionists and practice managers will continue to think they are so hard done by and should be applauded and adored for their thankless, heroic jobs and the public will continue to think that their must be some special aptitude test in rabid ratbaggery that they have to pass to get the job. Our surgery is closed for training one afternoon a month. I don't know what the training involves, but it's certainly not manners and customer service, I suspect it's quite the opposite - how to be as obstructive as possible in the rudest way possible.

Everyone is so unhappy (patients and GPs), that we should just privatise the whole lot. I'm happy with the service I receive for everything I pay privately for. Maybe we should have a referendum.

Of course it was down to GPs and receptionists. Who do you think is administering the vaccines? Boris and his cronies

Not where I live. My surgery isn't administering any covid vaccines as far as I'm aware. It's basically dead. Doors locked, and the very lucky people who get face to face attention...well I've never seen more than two people waiting outside to be called in.

For covid vaccinations, we have a choice of three hubs within six miles, each run by local pharmacies. Those with specific medical needs get theirs at the hospital hub, which only vaccinates staff, and those referred to it by their GP.

It's worth pointing out that until I lived in this country I had never seen aggressive signs up saying abuse of staff won't be tolerated. Because it was never needed. I had also never come across such hostile, rude staff that are so rude and confrontational. If you talk to customers/patients with politeness, respect and sympathy the same will be given to you.

@HmmmmmmInteresting

Out of interest, if all the appointments are gone, what is your suggestion(s) for what to do about all the people that need seeing?

Exactly. Genuine question to people who are complaining that they can’t get an appointment. Yesterday I worked from 8am to 8pm. The only breaks I had were to go to the toilet. In that time I spoke to patients, saw patients, auctioned medication requests, read (and acted on) hospital letters and blood results. All day. I didn’t stop. Please tell me how I could have seen more patients. Should I have stayed longer that 12 hours? I’m not being inflammatory, I’m genuinely interested to hear what suggestions people may have. We are not a high earning practice, we don’t prioritise making lots of money . We employ as many staff as we can find. But people don’t want to work in primary care. Please tell me what I should do. How can I see more patients when I already work non stop for 12 hours?