Why tell the receptionist why I'm seeing the doctor

[Eldermileniummam]

Why do they ask this? Is it so they can give you an appointment with the appropriate person or some other reason?

I usually don't mind but sometimes I'm embarrassed to say and never sure how specific I need to be.

I'm not sure why people are so weird.

Patient: "I've got discharge down below, it's very painful and smelly"
Receptionist: "no worries can you come in at 2pm"

Patient: "just wanted to discuss side effects of medication"
Receptionist: "no worries can you come next Tuesday"

Anything with discharge, alot of pain etc it's same day

If you don’t like your practice - change to another one.

But some patients don’t respond to the generic one given by pharmacies.

It's not always as easy as just employ more drs. That may work in cities and nice areas but for example where I live (a shit hole) its not easy to recruit drs to move their whole life and family here.

Not much choice , been with it for years experiencing the steady decline and shouldn’t have to. I pay taxes which funds GP surgeries the same as everybody else and patients should be able to complain and practices should listen. It’s not a private business but a service paid for by state money.

That’s exactly what I said in my post? That they know enough that I need to see the GP for antibiotics?

But we keep seeing doctors can’t get jobs. The latest round of government money shouldn’t be going on crappy online systems that won’t improve anything but more doctors with incentives.

You can lodge a complaint with your practice. Unfortunately the government does not fund healthcare services to meet the demands of the public. The number of patients are increasing and the number of GP’s are decreasing.
When DH decided to hand back his contract, no other GP’s wanted to take it on so the practice closed and the patients had to join other overwhelmed practices

Appreciate your receptionist whilst it lasts op. Soon you’ll have a crappy online system and will have to fill forms in with intimate details not knowing who reads it/ if you’re lucky and it isn’t repeatedly switched off.

The system is switched off when there aren’t any more appointments to give out.

Over the phone?

Patient satisfaction is important. It’s at an all time low. Any improvements to the nhs need to make it a priority. Last I heard GP surgeries aren’t above patients voicing dis satisfaction.

So no better than the 8.30 rush then and a waste of taxpayers money when it makes things worse for patients .

How is the receptionist supposed to assess if it's something that would warrant an emergency appointment if you refuse to tell them what it's for?

I had a patient like that recently, demanded to speak to the doctor that day and when I asked what the problem was they just replied "my health". Well, I gathered that much 🤦‍♀️
They spent several minutes complaining about how we're like "Fort Knox" and how hard it is to get an appointment. I then said it's not us being nosey, it's the doctor that asks us to ask these questions and if the doctor doesn't know why you're requesting an emergency appointment they will tell us you need to be offered a routine appointment. The magic words "the doctor" did the trick and they disclosed that they had been experiencing sharp abdominal pain for a couple of days which did indeed warrant an emergency appointment and I was able to add them to the list for the duty doctor to call that day. They could have saved us both 5 minutes if they'd just told me that from the start instead of being so vague.

How about if people who have form for time wasting get flagged to be palmed off. Rather than people who ring approximately ONCE in 3 or 4 years or less. Its not likely them going to be the tinewasters is it

In my surgery we are not the ones who triage. We take all the info, fill out the forms and then the clinician triages and we call back to make the appointment.

I think drs who say this mean they cant get the job they want where they want their are always jobs for drs and hospital consultants up where I live posts go unfilled for years. Iv just Googled it 1 in 5 gp posts are unfilled

The automated message at my GP says to make sure you see the most suitable person. When you speak to them they do caveat the question with “if you’re comfortable saying”. Appreciate this is probably rarer than it should be.

No there is thread upon thread re doctors and nurses currently unable to get jobs.

I loathe it when asked date of birth and name as to me it violates the data protection act, and when there is a room full of quiet patients. So I write my details on a note and show to the receptionist, it works for me.

https://www.rcgp.org.uk/news/member-research-jobsearch-struggle

Literally no-one in that room will care what your name and date of birth is though. What unnerves me somewhat is the pharmacy asking for your name and ADDRESS when you're picking up a prescription. Again, I doubt anyone cares though.

I you read it, it says they cant get an appropriate vacancy which means they can't get the job they want where they want

So why are 1 in 5 posts unfilled

Multiple reasons they can log you under a specific gp, most have specialist areas they prefer and are better at. Can direct to pharmacy if needed, mine did recently for a uti I had no idea pharmacies did this do was rather greatful. They also can triage simple things like okay your having a stroke u need an ambulance not a gp appointment but they also give a brief description of what it's in relation to so the gp isn't going in blind. Nothing worse than ringing someone and being like ehh so whats the problem. If they have a bit of background knowledge they can look into ur history medications specific to the condition previous reports etc when you deal with so many people you can't remember them all