I’m a GP receptionist and prepared to be honest about my job.

[TwistedSisterUK]

Hi all, as title says, I’m a Gp receptionist. After reading all the irate, insulting, rude and misinformed threads on here I have made this account!

Please feel free to ask me anything and I promise to answer honestly, even though my opinions and thoughts are likely to make me very unpopular here. I’m prepared for it , having read dozens of previous threads where we are called lazy, rude, power mad, bitches and more…..

I have done this job for 12 years, it’s hard work but can be at times extremely rewarding . I work with a great team. My opinions are only about my job, my day to day dealing at the surgery I work in.

First of all, to the ppl who think we just answer phones and ask patients to please take a seat - I wish!! Lol.

I deal with chemists, pharmacists,hospital secretaries, emails, post, 100s of clinical letters and test reports, arrange all referrals, do all test requests, type all clinicians letters, new patient files are refilled, files from patients leaving must be found and returned, clinical letters received are scanned , coded and actioned, translators requests, letters to be typed up and patients to be called to arrange reviews, Imms,smears etc, the loaning out of medical equipment - there’s lots more but hopefully you are getting the idea that my job involves far more than answering the odd call.

So, the bits you, the patients see and hear are a small bit of my job.

I have to go out today but will be happy to answer any questions any of you may have but I’ll start the ball rolling here about the “ magically appearing appointments “.

I read a lot of complaints here that you call and there are no appointments….then….lo and behold,….after more conversation an appointment is found! This is because I can put it down as an urgent call. If it is NOT an urgent call I will be reprimanded by my manager and if this continues I would possibly lose my job.

I am simply not allowed to continually add more and more patients to be added as “ extras” They are called extras as there genuinely are no appointments left.

When I return I’ll move on to the why we ask the reason for your call! Please be assured I do not think myself in anyway medically trained nor do I even like asking - I have to ask - it’s my job.

I promise any questions or comments will be answered in all honesty! I’m wearing my hard hat…..lol

You would be lucky to get a tenner an hour. I don't and I'm a medical secretary at a GP surgery. GP surgeries are run like businesses. You get paid more as a Band 3 working for a Trust.

@sassyannie

You would be lucky to get a tenner an hour. I don't and I'm a medical secretary at a GP surgery. GP surgeries are run like businesses. You get paid more as a Band 3 working for a Trust.

I'm a med sec in an NHS MH Trust. I get a band 4. Have you thought about a move?

I’ve just seen a few messages about me doing letters and asking if we have a medical secretary who should be doing these.

We have a senior administrator who does the majority of the typing thankfully! But if she is on annual leave or sick, yes, we do them!

I often do the short ones needed for a choose and book referral. You are right, there’s no way I could do what I do and type out all the letters!

@TwistedSisterUK

I’ve just seen a few messages about me doing letters and asking if we have a medical secretary who should be doing these.

We have a senior administrator who does the majority of the typing thankfully! But if she is on annual leave or sick, yes, we do them!

I often do the short ones needed for a choose and book referral. You are right, there’s no way I could do what I do and type out all the letters!

How many GPs work at the practice OP?

In many practices now there are between 8-10 GPs. There is no way the admin could be done by one admin person and a receptionist if she is away.

I think like any job there are people like you OP- who sound lovely and it sounds quite hard going to me!! And there are ones who should never be let near the public. When I was a student nurse many years ago I said the same about nurses— I met some who were frankly horrible people— why they went into nursing goodness knows!! My friend said same about teaching—

@iloveeverykindofcat - the hospital should have taken responsibility for that blood test UNLESS there was a pre-arranged agreement that that specific service was devolved to primary care where you are. The physician who thinks that a test is needed should order it and take responsibility for the results. OR should communicate politely with the GP explaining the need in the case of a pre-arranged service.

This is known as a 'secondary care task dump' - carrying out a service that the GP is not funded to perform, but the hospital is indeed funded to perform as part of your care episode.

I'm sorry you had such a run around - it would have driven me to the brink of fury too. However, the secondary care consultant was almost certainly in the wrong, not your GP.

Oh, and for the people saying that GPs aren't seeing patients - have a look at these stats. Scroll down to the section about appointments in general practice:
www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis

Thanks for all you do OP xx

They are ‘seeing’ far more than they used too. Phone calls allows them to treat more patients and the demand since they start of the pandemic is so high. I notice a lot of patients needing primary care repeatedly because secondary care are failing to put in place treatment plans to help the patient.

I remember Barbara and Mrs Raven - I realise they weren't real!

@TwistedSisterUK

browneyes77

Good question and one I cannot answer! You are right….nobody books online anymore, it hasn’t been bought back at my surgery yet either.

I’ll ask practice manager at next shift - you do the same! It was very convenient for many patients I agree. ( and less calls for me to take! )

I don’t really have any other major complaints to be honest!

My GP has always been fairly decent. The Nurses there are great and our receptionists don’t generally ask too many probing questions. They only ask the reason for the appointment and you don’t need to give masses of detail. Just a top line reason and they’re happy enough with that. To be honest they always sound like they don’t really like asking you! Feels more like they’re asking because they have to and therefore they don’t tend to probe too much. You could literally say ‘I just need to ask about a prescription’ and they won’t ask any further questions. And I understand why they have to ask and it doesn’t concern me at all.

I don’t mind telephone appointments. But sometimes a face to face I feel is better depending on what you need an appointment for. Really hoping they bring back the online system soon. I can’t access anything I could before except repeat prescriptions

What parts of you job could be automated by process and computers to reduce stress.

@KimikosNightmare its not down to receptionists to make the decisions about seeing patients or not, they are following instructions. Its shit and wrong, but its not receptionists trying to scame you out of F2F time.

I am sure that you are good at your job and lovely OP.

Despite me being a polite, friendly person, a receptionist at my surgery goes out of her way to be as unhelpful (and horrible) as possible. Also, my Dad died a day after a receptionist didn't find him an urgent appointment. He was too nice to insist. So, my general view of GP receptionists at the moment is sadly quite poor. That said, I have met really kind and helpful ones too. I avoid calling my surgery at the moment though because it's so difficult to get anywhere, which isn't great.

For the most part our gp receptionists are very nice, dd best friends mum is a gp receptionist so I know what the work load is like. There is one at our practice who I’ve nicknamed mini hitler. She is incredibly rude, condescending and I don’t take kindly to her tone especially when I’m not an all guns blazing kind of person, I’m pretty chilled, my back rarely gets up but as soon as I hear her now it defo does.
I have a repeat prescription that I’ve been on for my whole life, about 2 years ago now, I requested it with plenty of time, I usually leave it a week or 2 to pick up (it goes straight to the chemist) especially during covid because I appreciated they were very busy. Imagine my surprise when I went to pick it up and it hadn’t been sent but no body told me from the doctors that I needed a blood test they just didn’t refil it, now I know that wasn’t her fault however with it being the weekend and only having 2 days worth of tablets I needed to get it sorted so I called up, she straightaway dismissed me and told me I’d have to wait until the next week, I explained I needed an emergency refil so I had time to book a blood test and get results back as I can’t go without my medication. She refused to help me talk to a doctor and actually hung up, I never swore, raised my voice, I was very cordial as I knew it wasn’t her fault but the doctors.I had to ring back and lo and behold the other receptionist sort3d it in 5 minutes, even booking me a blood test appointment.
I appreciated her help and anyone else that don’t brush patients off.

I have a fantastic receptionist and she is brilliant and we get on great. Otherwise I would not have stayed with the doctor who I am not particularly fond of as he is arrogant and very dismissive. She is sooo busy and I know that the medical secretaries/receptionists hold it all together and are run off their feet. I often buy her a bottle of wine or chocs to say thank you.

Not all GP receptionists are lovely, the majority come across uninterested and act as the gatekeepers to the NHS. Usual response after calling constantly (last count was 48 times) is “computer says no”, no wonder this gets already stressed out patients even more stressed hence their reactions. The way GP surgeries are run needs an overhaul, they are not efficient.

We have one receptionist at our surgery who is really rude. The newer ones seem a lot nicer but there does seem to be a culture in public service settings that rudeness, indifference or unhelpfulness is to be expected - even tolerated.

I don't work in a medical setting but it is a public facing role and I'd never get away with the way some are in the NHS.

Do you agree that the NHS needs to be more patient centred in a way that a business strives to be customer centred? Even where the staff are polite, there seem to be rules in place that work for the surgery, not the patients - e.g. phone at this time, don't phone after this time, we can't give you a time we will call back but it will be roughly then, no repeat prescriptions over the phone/econsult.

OP, you claim you don't triage, but you also say you can offer urgent appointments to some people once they've explained their symptoms. That's triage, surely?

My GP receptionist refused to give me an urgent appointment because I'd already had one that week. But the GP had told me to make another urgent appointment if I got worse! I ended up in A&E who gave me the antibiotics I needed, but the GP could have prescribed them if only I'd been allowed an appointment.

@TwistedSisterUK I'm assuming you are up to date with your safeguarding training? if someone discloses abuse to you, you are the person who needs to report it to any relevant authority (usually social services). They don't accept 3rd party information, so the GP saying the victim told you and you told the GP wouldn't be acceptable for a safeguarding referral.

i think she was meaning domestic violence, probably by a partner, so not a social services issue usually, re disclosing abuse.
so if the doctor knows and can gently reference it with the patient, then it's up to the patient whether they want to report it further, to police.
at least the doctor can offer some support, and it may be useful to record the fact at the time, in case it's needed later as corroboration.

I also work in a gp surgery and would like to remind all those slating receptionists that they do an amazing job ! As a clinician we have limited hours to not only see patients face to face (yes we do even during pandemic times!) excessive amounts of admin to do, home visits , call backs , results , referrals , if reception teams did not screen and ask pts for more about the reason for their call or wanting an appointment it would come straight to the clinical team eating into our over stretched working hours each day. What people dont see is the extras we see/ do on a daily basis and the backlog waiting for us the next day ! Believe me non of the clinical team get off on time and I am sure it’s the same for reception/ admin, they play a vital role in supporting us clinical staff and help to ensure patients are not wasting valuable appointments and that patients are signposted to the right people and seen only when they really need it ! For far to long now people have abused the NHS / receptionists it has to stop ! They are doing an amazing job well done, proud to work with you all 👍

"I also work in a gp surgery and would like to remind all those slating receptionists that they do an amazing job !"

If you had read even a few posts on here, you would have seen that no, NOT all receptionists do an "amazing job". Some of them are downright appalling, to the point of lethal.

Most people have accepted that there are good and bad receptionists, and given examples of both - but it's ridiculous to virtue signal like this when the examples on here show your comment to be facile and far too generalistic.

Starlightening

I also work in a gp surgery and would like to remind all those slating receptionists that they do an amazing job !

No they don’t HTH!!

You can’t speak for the whole profession, just your own career.

I always thought the receptionist asking for information was common sense because so many people want to see doctors about things that can be see by nurses or a trip to the pharmacy versus some people really need to see a doctor that day. They are like the cruise directors of the medical world directing patients to the resources that best fit their requirements.

My last doctors surgery there was several receptionists but two main ones and I will admit that one as always very rude even when I was extremely polite and the other was always absolutely fine but I put that down to a personality quirk rather than a general rule about medical receptionists.