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.

Going by my recent experiences, the system works well when you have something that needs urgent investigation - I've had to go a couple of times recently for symptoms that could have indicated cancer but thankfully didn't. Both times the receptionists were great and got me in the same morning because I told them what it was for.

I do agree, though, that the experience can be a lot more frustrating when it's something that isn't necessarily urgent/does need to be seen but not necessarily the same day, and some receptionists definitely do act as gatekeepers, unfortunately. I think it's optional whether to tell them what it's for, but presumably if someone chooses not to disclose this info, they'll have wait longer. 😐

I've heard the system is being overhauled later in the year, so hopefully we'll see a bit of improvement then!

My previous surgery was one doctor short and the receptionists would try to book patients with nurse practitioners and physios even when it wasn't appropriate. It was awful. I would wait a couple of weeks for an appointment with the wrong person, then be told they couldn't help me and I'd need to wait a few more weeks for a GP appointment. Despite liking my GP, I couldn't bear it any longer and moved to another surgery. The new one is far better.

When I saw the results of a recent patient survey, I felt vindicated. Apparently my current surgery is the best in town, and my previous one is the worst!

By and large, my experience in England is exactly the same as you have experienced in Australia.

People complaining on a forum doesn't give the full picture at all.

Not only do I always manage to see a GP in a sensible time, but I and my children are both cared for my specialist clinics for our chronic conditions and whenever any of us have needed an urgent appointment it has always been put in place swiftly.
We also have specialist nurses who are brilliant at responding swiftly to queries

I really wish your experience is the norm in the UK, There are too many threads about how difficult it is to see a doctor and the answers to this one, shocked me.

The majority of people are not stupid or idiots. Most of us don't want to see a doctor if we could help it, and if we make an appointment, it's because something is wrong. Making an appointment with a doctor should never be screened/culled by a receptionist without any kind of health background - that's admin guidelines without any consideration to health.

It applies to everyone

I do think practices need to be clearer about the types of appointment that can be dealt with by a nurse or even the pharmacy. Our surgery has recently added 'pharmacy first' info to their recorded phone message which is helpful, but it's harder to tell where to start with some symptoms. DH made a GP appointment a while back and was snapped at that 'the nurse could have dealt with that', it wasn't the sort of thing where that was clear. If they want efficient use of resources they need to supply the patient with the necessary information.

111 have a dentist option and get you emergency appointments and gp isn't a dentist

This is very much not the case. Similarly, the customer is definitely not always right, quite rarely in fact.

The Australian healthcare system is not a utopia don't kid yourself.and the services you are talking about are the same in the UK, they're not unique to Oz

I've had many people tell me stories just like the ones on here regarding waiting times, difficulty with appointments etc. It's true the receptionist's don't tend to ask quite so routinely here - but they do ask! - and that's surely just due to training and protocol?

On the other hand I have always had very good service - just like the one you detail - at both ends of the world so maybe it's just an area / luck thing that your doctor seems to be a good one.

the two nurses I had to see since Covid both misdiagnosed me, so I do not have any faith the system, I had to pay to see a consultant privately

I definitely have a better understanding of the genetic condition that my mum, sister, daughter and I all have than the GP receptionist at our last surgery. I knew my daughter needed a GP appointment, not a physio, but the receptionist didn't listen. The physio was apologetic that he couldn't help, but said we needed to see the GP. This meant waiting a few more weeks.

What when " the customer" is more trained than the receptionist? A paramedic or nurse for example? Surely they would know more whether they need to see a doctor more than the receptionist would?

But it is so bloody frustrating when an appointment is made for you and it turns out when you get there that it is not a doctor at all, especially when you know that it is a doctor that is needed, say for a consultant referral. I have had this happen several times and it just wastes everyone's time when the HCA/nurse or whatever says "Oh you need to see a doctor" - I KNOW - that was what I asked for in the first place!

Especially frustrating as I live in the middle of nowhere and it takes me 40 minutes on tiny lanes to get there in the first place.

Recently I rang up and asked the receptionist if the nurse giving me a denosumab injection that day could also remove the dressing on my new pacemaker operation wound (it was due to be removed that day) as I am on my own and felt rather squeamish about doing it myself. The receptionist said No! Please bear in mind the distances involved (see above) and considerations of simple humanity. I needed reassurance that the wound was healing properly.

The GP upthread said and many more issues that really didn’t need an emergency face to face appointment with a doctor. But GP appointments are not just about emergencies. My late OH was a GP and it was all about establishing a relationship with your patient, understanding their needs, their history, their family circumstances, being the person who had an overview of all their problems and how these impinged on their quality of life.

Now what happens is that a receptionist decides who you see, and indeed whether you see anyone at all, and each of those doctors deals with their little compartment of intervention in a vacuum.

The patient is left explaining stuff over and over again. I have lost count of how many times a doc has proposed a drug treatment and I have said: "But that was tried before and failed", "But if you look I am also taking X and the two are not compatible", "The consultant said that drug was not appropriate" etc. etc.

No communication, no humanity, no continuity of care - it has all gone down the pan. My OH would be turning in his grave ........

There is nothing wrong with the individual people I see - they all mean well and are polite and trying to be helpful, but the whole system is totally disjointed now.

According to you, most of us are idiots not knowing when we're sick or something is wrong when we, or our children, are not well.

BTW, we are not customers to a corporation like Apple, Some of us believe in universal health care and the right to see a doctor and specialist care..

Oh - and my surgery have a wonderful(?) system whereby you ring up for an appointment and are told there are none for 3 weeks, and you say "Fine, please make me one after that", and they say they can't because those appointments have not het been "released"! Once I made some jokey comment and to be fair on the receptionist the poor woman said "I know, it is mad. I often marvel at the stuff that has to come out of my mouth!"

At this point you have to put a reminder in your diary to ring the surgery in 3 weeks and try and make an appointment. You could be dead by then!! - probably lost the will to live!

Ive called in at the surgery to make an appt for a uti and been told not to leave until I’d seen someone!

the receptionist absolutely assesses urgency. I’ve also wanted to see someone about a concerning mole and instead of seeing my gp and then being seen by the gp that has had specialist mole training the receptionist makes my appointment directly with him.

the general public may not think that an attack of hives requires attention soonish but the receptionist probably does.

Yes they should have but they didn't. Still don't see what's wrong with asking a doctor for help with a raging infection.

Every day is a school day!

I had to book an asthma review last year. It was with a physicians associate whose first words were "I can't prescribe". She wanted to change my inhalers. When I checked something on my NHS app it had indeed been changed but not properly. (I hadn't been given a reliever inhaler or had my prescription changed to use my inhaler as maintenance and reliever) I then had to waste my time getting this sorted

And if I'd seen the nurse they would have sorted it properly when I saw them

I mean an ingrown toenail or wax blocked ears are very different to a lump on ones genitals or vomitting litres of blood.

It must be to assess the person best placed to deal with it. As it might need to be a GP experienced with cancer, or simply a nurse.

No they don't dentists prescribe antibiotics

People who believe they are intelligent enough are often the worst offenders,and the reason why the system exists as it does

I had a GP recprionist tell.me we didnt need a particular vaccin for a country I was travelling to. Luckiliy, I knew we did and paid to have it done privately in the end. This is the issue. Receptionists arent medically qualified and havent dont the years of training the doctors and nurses have. Its not fair to put them in the medical triage role and too often its a gatekeeping role that they are incentivised to do enthusiastically by practice management, for understandable resourcing reasons. But they only have to be wrong once about something serious for there to be potentially disastrous consequences.

I really dont understand why practice management open themselves up the the liability. Mine has an excellent paramedic physicians associate who I will happily see now instead of a GP. But everything she says or does has to be signed off by a GP. If she writes a prescription she has to pop out and get it authorised by a GP. And yet that same practice is happy to let receptionists with no medical training or qualifications listen to a vague history and decide what kind of medical next step is or isnt required. I find that bizarre.

I only wish I could even talk to a receptionist at my GP. All calls to the surgery, which is on the East Sussex coast, go to a call centre in Manchester! The call centre is also used by companies of all different types and the staff have no knowledge of anything to do with health btw. The idea seems to be to keep patients away from the surgery at all costs, to the extent that you can't even speak to anyone there on the phone.

Im the same i don't understand why talking to someone who works in health care about your health is embarrassing its just body parts we all have them people need to get comfortable with it so they can teach their kids to be comfortable with it for safeguarding reasons