People walking in during gynae appointment

[Over40Overdating]

I know I’m not BU but my GP surgery beg to differ!

I had a routine gynae exam earlier this week and over the span of 10 minutes, 2 people walked into the room without knocking - one male, one female, both patients.
I was behind the curtain so they didn’t see anything but I was naked from the waist down & in stirrups!

Even after the second interruption the nurse refused to lock the door as it’s ‘not policy’ and when I complained to the front desk they shrugged and said it was an error, out of their control and nothing happened so what’s the problem.

Surely door locks exist for this reason & it’s not unreasonable to expect to have a gynae exam without worrying about who else might walk into the room unannounced?!

YANBU but they will consider the curtain screening off sufficient privacy.

I have had about 100 gynae appts in the last few years due to chronic issues. I've been from pillar to post - from scanning companies to hospitals to GPs to A&Es to community gynae to surgeons, you name it.

Until recently, without fail, every single appointment involved needing to be internally examined. Therefore, sadly, I am very well aware that according to how the NHS is operating these days, apparently a badly pulled over curtain is considered 'privacy' and a fellow nurse popping their head in the curtain to ask a question not related to my welfare is par for the course.

Also, in A&E there is quite literally nothing to stop a random stranger who is not a nurse or medic but a patient / visitor accidentally entering the space or pulling the curtain back. I hardly meets the 'being treated with dignity' commitments.

Personally, I would voice your complaint and express how it made you feel, it might help.

An error out of their control ffs??

If I was sent to a room & the door closed I'd knock & wait.

Sorry to those who have experienced similar - I’m pretty robust in medical situations but I felt extremely vulnerable, being half naked and not able to move as quickly as I usually can.

To make it worse after the first time it happened I asked her to lock the door, she told me it was policy not to and assured me it wouldn’t happen again and lo and behold it did!

And I’m sure the first person would have gone back and said ‘you sent me to the wrong room’ and instead of taking that on board they sent another person the same way. Total incompetence.

I’ve called the surgery to find out how I can submit a complaint - they are insisting complaints won’t be accepted by email, won’t give me the practice manager’s email address or let me speak to them and only printed letters sent by post will be accepted as ‘proper’ complaints. Madness!

The door should be locked. It matters not one jot that you were behind a curtain. Members of the public, or even other medical staff should not be wandering in and out of examination rooms willy nilly.
Make a complaint and tell them.they need to train their receptionists to send patients to the correct room!!

Not GP, but when I went for a mammogram earlier this year, the radiographer made a point of telling me "I'm locking the door so nobody can come in".

I made an official complaint via email.
It is an accepted form of communication legally.

@Over40Overdating I would send them a letter recorded delivery and at the same time send a copy to the Integrated Care Board (is it still this?) for your area. I would put their poor complaints procedure in the complaint as well.

Outrageous!

You have a legit complaint that is not just 'feedback' (as they like to call it these days), it's asking for a response and action to be taken.

I'm sure that all GPs must be obliged to have a complaints manager - in my vast experience it's always addressed to the Practice Manager in the first instance and I have used the public email address with a heading 'formal complaint - please deal with this in line with your published complaints procedure' and then put my complaint in an attached document.

Also in my vast, it's treading tricky ground as GPs are quite fond of saying 'sorry but please find a different GP as we can't meet your needs'. Which they are totally allowed to do.

Also I think the QCC monitors GPs practices and they might be able to help / suggest.

I've had several smears at my GP surgery and they always lock the door.

I would complain. I agree with PP that reception cocked up sending people to the wrong room and don't want that to be exposed. However, if the door had been locked, no-one else would have been able to get in.

That's awful and I would definitely submit a formal complaint.

A couple of years ago I was fully topless in the middle of an ECG - no curtain, just on the bed at the side of the room. A man ignored the sign on the door and barged in; the only reason the HCP managed to cover me in time is because the room was an odd shape and the door was round a corner. Thankfully that gave her a few seconds' warning, whereas he'd have seen everything had the door opened straight into the examination room.

She angrily pointed out that she was with a patient and the guy just blinked at her. "I'm here to check XYZ in all of the rooms", he said, pointing just above my head. "Is it okay if I check it now?"

She practically carried him out of the room and locked the door behind him.

@Jethia OP said it was reception who were sending people to the wrong room.
So they are trying to tell OP to shut up because they know they are in the wrong.

Just from responses on this one thread, it's clear that this is not an isolated incident. Who knows how often this happens in all the GP surgeries and clinics across the country? And a nurse apologised to a MAN who walked in on an exposed woman because it was embarrassing for HIM. We really are treated as non-humans, even by HCP's who are women. It's ingrained in NHS culture.

We should make a huge fuss when things like this happen, every time. If this becomes more widely known, the NHS will either have to shape up, or admit publicly that they think it's fine for women in the most exposed, vulnerable position possible to have no privacy.

it wasnt out of their control they were sending people to the wrong room

I have had endless gynae oncology exams over the last 10 years at the hospital. Every single consultation the door has been locked and the curtain drawn - as it should be.

I would be raging about this. It totally undermines privacy and dignity - the cornerstone of the NHS. I'm guessing they get a lot of complaints hence why they make it so difficult. Put it in writing for sure.

This is totally unacceptable. You should complain to the practice manager and, if you get no joy there, you need to take it higher. I couldn’t agree more with @TallulahBetty.

Can you complain to the CQC?

That’s terrible as a GP I lock the door when examining any exposed skin part

In fact, I remember a time one October, when I was having a smear test. That surgery had skylights. The nurse immediately pulled the blinds because they had been having workmen on the roof getting rid of the fallen leaves and she wanted me to be assured of total privacy. This should be standard practice.

I'm a practice manager and would be utterly horrified if this had happened to one of our patients. Quite clearly your surgery is missing a whole raft of safeguards which could - should - have been implemented to prevent any patient suffering a loss of privacy and/or dignity.

We do not allow patients to access the clinical area unless accompanied by a member of staff. Our clinical rooms are all off a corridor behind another door on which there is a very clear sign stating that patients must not enter without staff.

Occasionally, 'difficult' or 'threatening' patients have attempted to do so in order to force an issue, e.g. when they can't get an appointment at a specific time with a specific clinician, but we have security policies in place to deal with such a situation and therefore the likelihood of them barging in upon someone else is fairly small.

Our GPs and nurses always offer a chaperone for intimate examinations and in fact, patients are welcome to request one as they wish, even if the consultation is 'non-intimate'. They also offer to lock the door.

Within the practice it is drummed in to all staff they must not enter a clinical room when the door is shut unless a) it's a genuine emergency such as fire, or when the clinician has set their alarm off, or b) the clinician has contacted them and requested that they do so, e.g. to bring a particular piece of equipment in. Before they do that they should ask the patient if it's okay to be interrupted and staff have also been trained to knock, wait for the 'come in' just to be sure and furthermore to offer a 'sorry for the interruption' to the patient so, you know, they feel acknowledged.

It is so, so important to maintain dignity as much as possible during important medical treatment which, by its nature, can often feel awkward, embarrassing and scary. The old mantra of clinicians having 'seen it all before' may be true but an empathetic clinician appreciates that they may not have seen yours! Previous posters on this thread have already commented that they've avoided vital and potentially lifesaving checks since a prior appointment made them feel exposed and humiliated which is awful, and which proves that experiences like the OP's are much more than a bit of embarrassment that can be brushed off.

Please do complain OP, and I'm sorry you were put in that position.

Fine. If they want to put obstacles in the way of your complaint by not giving you the details of the practice manager, inform them you will be making your complaint about them to the Local Integrated Care Board (ICB) instead. You can find the ICB who covers your local area on the NHS website here:
www.nhs.uk/contact-us/how-to-complain-to-the-nhs/

The thread yesterday where the young lady was reminded of her overdue smear test by a receptionist at top volume in front of a crowded waiting room and this one makes me think that, while we have gained beyond all human imagination in the field of medical science in the past fifty years, we have lost a great deal in the way that far too many patients are treated.

Sexual health staff here and we lock the door.

Door should have been locked and patients should have stayed in the waiting room until called.

I had a smear at Gp surgery last week and the nurse locked the door. I already hate appointments like that but if I heard the door go that would make me panic. YADNBU. I would Make a formal complaint to practise manager

It's terrible what happened to you, OP!
And also terrible that it's so difficult to make a complaint about it.

When you submit your complaint to the ICB, make sure you also complain about how difficult they have made it for you to complain.

I had a situation a few years ago where I was having a conversation with the practice nurse about very private stuff and when I left I discovered there had been some random guy in the adjoining room to which the door was open, listening to everything I said. He had a good look at me as I came out, too. The conversation had been such a sensitive one that I didn't feel able to complain about it. I really wished later that I had.