From GP practice managers

[Bagamoyo1]

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

Am also an HCP.
History is going to judge GPs very harshly when this is over.
I don’t blame receptionists. They don’t make the rules. GPs who have been refusing to see patients in their own surgeries have been lining up for extra shifts at primary care covid assessment clinics and central vaccination hubs. All with ‘extra’ pay.

I will never look at my GP colleagues in the same light again.

My GP DH works 7.30-7.30 5 days a week for £60,00 p/a. He spent 2 hours one evening late last week locked down in the practice with the cleaner whilst the Police tried to remove a gang of violent men who had tried to break in to steal some methadone. He's been seeing patients face to face since last June and spending one day a week out of practice to administer the vaccines. The admin that he doesn't get done on his vaccine day is done every weekend and its still not enough. There is simply too much work, not enough staff and not enough funding.

Oh.. and he would far rather be in surgery than do vaccine rollout, but there has to be a GP / doctor on site. Surgeries are on a rota to provide the doc.

Out of about 20 GP's at our large practice only 3/4 work full-time. The average salary is £83k.

That's good Rosesandhellebores! Pay is determined by the profitability of the surgery - the larger the surgery and the more services they offer, the larger the profits. Smaller rural areas tend to have lower pay but are perhaps more essential due to the lack of secondary care in the region.

@RosesAndHellebores

Out of about 20 GP's at our large practice only 3/4 work full-time. The average salary is £83k.

GPs work a 10 hour day at an absolute minimum, and 12 hours is more typical. So a GP working 3 days a week is working an entire normal working week.

@HighlandCowbag

My surgery is fantastic.

Friend who lives the other side of town has waited 13 weeks for a psychiatrist appointment after a MH breakdown severe enough to see her in hospital 3 times in the last 3 months.

Finally had a telephone consultation with psychiatrist. Who sent a report to GP with a prescription on it. GP receptionist didn't feel it was important enough to bother reading, archived it so no meds. Then when friend chased told her she needed to go back to psychiatrist. It took friend ringing crisis team and 2 additional weeks, the psychiatrist ringing the GP (and being furious he couldn't get through on the phone) and various other agencies getting involved before she was prescribed the meds, 15 weeks after a suicide attempt.

This post highlights how much misinformation if not outright lies must be on this thread. Receptionists are not clinical and so don't get to 'decide' if a letter from a specialist is important or not.

So how would you improve the situation? If you have a policy on remote or face to face, could you improve communications with all clients - even the elderly who can't access things through the internet or recorded messages and are totally confused and batted away? The texts my parents in their 80s have received have been in shouty capital letters saying, basically, stay away and don't call us (this was relating to the vaccine). The 'number withheld' practice also gives them worries when phone calls are made.

As others have said, I think, I cannot think of a time that a receptionist or phone interaction with any other healthcare practice has been of a similar quality to those with a GP practice, but it is not difficult to think of belittling ones from that direction. Look at the feedback on NHS and PCT websites, this selection of experiences is not just a silo of people for whom this treatment is an exception. I am very sorry for the hugely difficult circumstances and could not do the job myself, but you seem to be assuming that everyone should go elsewhere, not bother, or wait until things are better or really bad and get treated as an emergency, which has happened to many people. Is that effective?

I believe the written stories here, but if they are not powerful and emotional enough, maybe a film of some patients in genuine surgery interactions, or telling their stories of their treatment, their small things that became serious, their days waiting for a call and to get through on the phone while their baby deteriorates, 101 other difficulties, might be an interesting counterbalance to this.

[quote TroysMammy]@BeaLesshasty yes at the moment I get £8.91 an hour which is 1p more than the £8.90 I got before minimum wage was increased in April.[/quote]
Shame on your GP bosses for paying you so little.

GPs work a 10 hour day at an absolute minimum, and 12 hours is more typical. So a GP working 3 days a week is working an entire normal working week

This is true in most high paid professions IME.

I am never rude to receptionists, I think it is awful that some people are.

However I also reckon that you could easily get an equally shocking video of the reverse and showing cases of the treatment that patients are getting.

The medically untrained receptionist at my mums gp cut her repeat prescription down by half as ‘I don’t think you need that many!’ My mum did ask if the did tie had agreed but the receptionist just kept saying ‘you don’t need that many!’ My mum is a a bit of a shrinking violet so accepted it. Her tablets ran out early so she put in another driest for the same thing to happen again so she started to eke the medication out. Her symptoms returned and this medication is basically what keeps her alive. She saw the GP and he asked if she had been raking her medication properly as het symptoms shouldn’t have been so bad. She told him what had happened with the receptionist. He was apoplectic with rage and left the room when he came back I. He handed her an immediate prescription and apologised profusely and said it would not happen again. What gives an untrained receptionist the right to tell a patient that the prescription the trained gp has provided is too much? I was going to complain once she told me but she said the gp had already dealt with it and didn’t want to ‘fuss’. If she had died it would have been the fault of that jumped up wee woman!

Also DH was given a telephone appointment to remove stitches despite handing a letter from the hospital into the surgery.

Im sorry but I have been on the receiving end of a hideous GPs receptionist, where I ended up in tears and put down the phone on them rather than deal with their hostility.
I firmly believe this was caused by a receptionist who thought she knew better than me, was nasty down the phone to me and Im sorry but some, not all receptionists think they are the doctor and are on a total power trip as well.

I have never, ever, been rude to a receptionist. Some receptionists are extremely brusque with no need for it. I do appreciate they have difficult situations and patients to deal with, moreso now. A little civility goes a long way. I hasten to add there was much more to my story, but can not say any more on a public forum.

Problem is people expect the world from the NHS and all things considered, it does a flipping good job.

Is it underfunded? It depends entirely if the money it's allocated is actually used efficiently. I doubt that but the second anyone tries to do anything, all hell breaks loose.

People also seem to want to live their lives with absolutely no regard to the long term consequences and then get sorted by the NHS e.g. the obesity levels.

My GP practice has been wonderful throughout the pandemic and has done face to face where absolutely needed. It's probably keeping the phone appointments once this is all over as they've been able to fit in more appointments. Yes, I've had miserable receptionists but if you get to know them it's because some people are absolute scumbags to them (pharmacy staff are exactly the same).

@BeaLesshasty thank you. I've been in the job nearly 12 years and I get the same as colleagues who have been there 5 years and another 18 months.

I had proper customer and telephone training in my previous job along with what was called executing at speed, prioritising work and dealing with complaints which I have transferred over to the job I do now and more. Some staff do the bare minimum and don't go over and above which I do for "customer satisfaction" As a result no one has told me to fuck off like they have to my colleagues although I was told by one charmer over the phone " I'm going to come down there and rape you" the Police were involved and he was struck off.

I still won't get a significant pay rise maybe an extra 15p an hour.

@HmmmmmmInteresting are you saying that it didn't happen? According to both the psychiatrist and the crisis team who were both trying to find out why the surgery didn't prescribe the meds, this is what happened. Admin/reception staff review incoming mail, only put in front of the GPs what they (the admin staff) deem important enough to bother the GP with.

This same surgery also refused my aunt face to face appointments and she struggled to get telephone appointments because covid. She was ringing to discuss symptoms because she was worried cancer had returned and spread. Wasntold it was side effects of meds and to stop worrying cos there was a pandemic on and lots of anxiety around.

Aunts cancer had spread from lungs to liver and bones and probably everywhere. She probably has weeks left. If it had been picked up last year she may have been eligible for pallative chemotherapy. As it is she will die within weeks, a few months if we are lucky.

@maddening

I am never rude to receptionists, I think it is awful that some people are.

However I also reckon that you could easily get an equally shocking video of the reverse and showing cases of the treatment that patients are getting.

Complete agree, good point

I don't condone swearing at receptionists, or any of the staff.

But different practices have set up different systems, and some are far worse than others.

At my surgery, it's the only one in town, so no where else to register if you have a problem.

We have to phone to make an appointment. This appointment is for a call back to make an appointment with the doctor, so a two step process before your even speak to, let alone see, a doctor!

It's ludicrous. God help you if you miss that first call back, though, you have to go through it all again.

Nearly cost my dad his life earlier this year. Receptionist told him he'd have to make an appointment to see his doctor 2 weeks after his blood results were back. It was only because a locum took the trouble to review his results that he actually got a call back later that day from this doctor telling him to go to hospital straight away, doctor would contact the hospital, that dad was treated. He's better now, luckily for him.

Our whold GP system needs an overhaul.

@Taliskerskye re "employing more staff" I take it you mean more GPs. We can't get any. We have sessions unfilled as we speak and people have come back in on their holidays to help out. It's awful. I'm at breaking point now. The demand is so high, we can't get GPs and there is no ceiling on our workload. I can't speak when I get home as I am broken. It's a horrible horrible time and I feel for the patients but it's just not safe and we need something major to help us. I've been a GP for 30 years and it's never been so bad.

I couldn't get an appointment during the last 12 months with my GP. The receptionists were conducting their own version of triage and just wouldn't book anything F2F for me.

Thank god for private doctors - instant appointment, referral to private specialist, SEEN by a person and physically checked, then treatment for something that could have otherwise been life-shortening.

Like a PP, I have complained, to a wall of silence.

I’m going to leave this thread now, because as someone else said, my mental health can’t take any more of a battering from the baying crowd

Baying crowd? I'm starting to think you started the thread to be goady.

And the people talking about contraception. If you aren't responsible enough to flipping use a condom, which are available for free from many places, then perhaps you shouldn't be calling yourself an adult? Clearly no self restraint and beyond stupid