GP receptionist - report or let it go?

[6079SmithW]

I’ve just come off the phone with the GP surgery.
I had an appointment today which due escalating problems at work I needed to move to next week. It’s for a timed (28 days) injection so it’s really not convenient to move it as I will be outside of treatment for a week, but I didn’t feel I had any choice.
(Full disclosure - I also had to ring them yesterday because I had written the appointment down on different days in two different diaries).
After changing the appointment, and presumably after she thought the call was disconnected, the receptionist said (to person unknown) “She’s a right bloody nuisance ‘6079SmithW’ with her bloody injection”, then realised and hung up.
I rang the surgery back and told her that I had her comment and she apologised. I explained that I would love to be able to drop everything and just attend but that as I work full time, I have to balance priorities. She said “Well we struggle for appointments so it’s just a good job we could for you in”. I felt that the apology wasn’t genuine and she was just trying to justify herself.
I appreciate that we’re all busy and we all have work stress etc. but AIBU to think that a GP receptionist shouldn’t be slagging off patients (within earshot of god knows who)? Furthermore would you report her or just let it go? My inclination is to leave it there, but I feel like she hasn’t taken the incident seriously and probably just slagged me off a bit more once she got off the second call !

I completely agree. The receptionist was foolish not to have made sure that the call had ended, and was a bit unprofessional, but I can understand why she was pissed off, especially as you had already called them the day before. Of course people would whinge to each other under such circumstances. You got an apology from her and I think you would be very wrong to take things further. By not keeping your appointment, you may well have prevented someone who really needed to see a doctor, and who would have kept the appointment, from doing g so.

I think you should let the manager know.

You’re not being a nuisance. Imagine if someone vulnerable hears themselves being spoken about this. Yes, people complain about other people, but their role is in a place of people who are sick-it’s not an average office job or customer services in a supermarket etc.

You could explain that you said you heard what they said and that they apologised but you would hate it to happen again and to anyone else. You don’t even need to say who you are -but the message needs to be clear that this is not ok.

How does that work? The receptionist didn’t know there was a free appointment until the op phoned the second time to cancel it. Presumably the very next patient who phoned for an urgent appt. would have been given the free slot?

Or there's a previous patient who had called and been refused a lot she could have called back

Slot not lot!

Get over it. Have you never said something similar about anyone?

You do seem disorganised and to expect other people to cope with the effects of your disorganisation and rearrange things for you. The GPs who are her employers will value an employee over a chaotic patient who most GPs currently have more than enough of at the moment. Complain but don't expect much to change expect more terseness from all staff and defensiveness around you. You were a pain in the bum about that appointment. She shouldn't have said it but it's true.

Everyone does it. I say everyone, I genuinely do not. Though I know / hear so many that do. I met the loveliest hotel receptionist today yet I know from someone that works with her that she is vile about guests. She was probably vile about me when I left. It's not right but so many people do it to vent. I work for a charity and my colleagues do it daily.

This was my thought too!
I don’t think you are being unreasonable OP, as she was very rude. I think I would probably leave it there, as annoying as it is. You did at least get to tell her you heard her.

In defence of patients in general I am finding this attitude of expecting us to be grateful very tiresome. It takes me back to the 50s/60s when we were treated by the NHS as charity cases. I had thought that things had improved but since covid we seem to have regressed. Another example is the expectation that we should make ourselves available for a phone appointment for the entire day.

I'm surprised/heartened to see nobody has trotted out the "she needs to remember who she works for and our taxes pay her wages!"😆

Is this injection not something you or a member of your family could be trained to give yourself going forward?
Lots of our patients give themselves all sorts after appropriate training.
Practice nurse.

So you did?

Complain OP. The receptionist used your name in a bitch about your medical care. Not on.

It wasn’t about her medical care, it was about her pissing them about.

“She’s a right bloody nuisance ‘6079SmithW’ with her bloody injection”

Belittling the patient and the medical need here.

She was a right bloody nuisance. No belittling there, just description.

Yes, you’re so right. Why does such deference persist, I wonder? It’s almost as though people don’t understand the difference between ‘free’ and ‘free at the point of delivery’.

And the 'bloody injection'?

Not professional, is it?

I wasn’t aware that a receptionist role was a profession. Why should someone doing an admin job be professional?

This is pedantic in the extreme.

Nowhere in a receptionist,'s contract does it say they can be a rude gossipy knobhead.

I wasn’t aware that a receptionist role was a profession. Why should someone doing an admin job be professional?

’Member of a profession’ is only one definition of ‘professional’, as I’m sure you know.

Oh bore off.

No need. Just a waste of everyone's time.

Missing the point entirely but I'm impressed you were able to get straight through every time you called. At my practice it can take days to even get a call answered.

And yes, you were being a pain. I'd just leave it and try to be more organised next month.

It’s literally their job. To make appointments. Why is moving an appointment any skin off their nose? I hate the way GP receptionists seem to take everything personally and think they are the gatekeepers to heaven itself.
Complain. It’s very unprofessional. And no I don’t slag off patients, that’s also unprofessional and just mean.