GP receptionists?

[cherrypied]

They are called care navigators.

I’m so poorly and fed up but they seem to want to do everything tiny to not give me a an appointment with a GP.

Is this part of their training?

I queried it a lot at the beginning, they're adamant they absolutely will not take appointments in the phone or in person under any circumstances. We spent a good 10+ minutes arguing about it. They won't budge. At all.
They turned the woman away.

I'm sure they've had complaints, but they still won't accept anything other than the online form.

But they don't always get it right. I rang my GP to speak to someone about my babies development. The receptionist told me to speak to my health visitor I did. They came and saw my.little one and said he needed to see a GP and the receptionist refused an appointment stating that it was the health visitor who needed to deal with it. And even though the health visitor contacted the GP receptionist whilst I was with her, the appointment was still refused. This went back and forth for weeks until I finally got a triage appointment through 111 and my little boy and when I took him to the GP later that day the GP was really concerned he hadn't been seen sooner and needed urgently seeing by people the health visitor couldn't refer to.

I truly hate the use of the word 'poorly'.

The poster stated that the receptionist sent a patient to the bloody library to fill one in. She's already said they won't talk to you in person about appointments

This is my experience too!

I recently had a GP do a referral to the women’s meno hub, weeks went by and I’d heard nothing. Called into my surgery as I was passing, asked receptionist if there was anyway they could chase it up.

Told me absolutely not and I needed to fill in another online form that would then be triaged by a GP.

I suggested that was surely a waste of a GPs time, couldn’t a receptionist or practice manager chase it up? No, fill in the online form.

so I did.

I got a text from a GP telling me they would ask the receptionist to chase it up.

How about someone suffering dementia then? I used to have issues back in the day getting appts at an old GP surgery as they insisted you had to phone. And phoning is difficult for me with poor hearing. So I can imagine the way receptionists treat people

Someone suffering dementia is in the same predicament if they need to use the phone? Someone would presumably do it for them?

They may not though. If a career pops in twice a day and the online booking is only open certain hours it may not tally.

I never said was he same thing as not being able to hear on the phone but it does give me insight on ways receptionists try toake sure that you can't get a bloody appointment. There want people who could make phone calls for me at 8 am to the Zgp. There may not be anyone to be able to book the online appt for someone else while it's open

Friend tried to get appointment with Drs as had what she could describe as unusual back pain, as receptionist didn’t deem it as urgently needing to be seen by dr, she booked her in for an appointment with a 6 week wait, unfortunately she seen dr and was rushed to hospital and passed away a week later, it was cancer

Yesz bit GPs don't always get it right either. We had to take DD back to the local GP surgery 3 times with same issues, and only got actual help from a locum who actually knew what was up and referred us, there first one said see how she goes, the second one looked confused as to why we were there (it literally says in NHS website take your child to the GP if it is happening)

It’s very sad that the misconception is that all GP receptionists are some kind of sadistic arseholes who just get some kind of thrill out of saying no to patients? Do you really believe that all the GP receptionists in the UK get up every day and go to work with the intention of making your life a misery? Or rather they are at work looking at a screen with 10 appts left for the whole day and all of the responsibility of trying to work out who should get them. Use some critical thinking

loads of people already responded that there are more people wanting appts than appts, and we have a GP shortage so your suggestion to have more scheduled appts won’t work? Also why is everyone always so protective about A&E but give no shits wasting GP time? Do you know how many people don’t turn up to appts every day? This is part of the issue

So now you say they don't have any training when your previous posts ask "Is this part of their training?". You've answered your own questions.

Let's change the word appointment to consultation. A consultation is a request for a medical problem. It is also a request for a letter, antibiotics, medication review, test result query, "can you ask the Doctor xx?" it's anything a GP needs time to deal with. Just because you don't want or feel the need to actually see the GP it doesn't mean your query doesn't take up time.

Triage is not done by a Receptionist, they take messages for GPs to triage but if someone rings with chest pain, nits, vision problems (loss of, blurred, disturbed) or toothache they direct them to the most appropriate place. All this information should be on the practice website, surgery answer message for serious problems and 111 but no people still ring their GP surgery.

Receptionists at our GP surgery are awesome

But it's a worry that so many people gave difficulty accessing a GP

The receptionist at my mums surgery refused to give her an appointment because she’d had one two weeks prior and they were busy. Mum is never ill. Turns out mum has terminal liver cancer ( she called 111 in the end and they wanted her straight to hospital) . But they just don’t care enough about people. They are just on a power trip for the most part. Nothing caring about them AT All.

should say here , my surgery is ace. But it’s a lottery.

I think it is gate-keeping. My Dr's surgery, which has been lovely and helpful is now overwhelmed and getting an appointment can be challenging. I didn't even need an appointment, just a quick conversation about some blood test results and a regular check up for something. A two minute chat. I couldn't book it, had to fill in an on line form for the check up question. Waited a week, no answer, then out of the blue got a text saying I had an appointment that afternoon. Went to surgery and it turned out to be a phone appointment. Sorted now but what an unnecessary palaver.

The second question was about some results in a test that came back 'no action needed' but I needed clarification/understanding. receptionist just kept saying tests were fine. Really annoying. I persisted but she really didn't like it. Another on line form here I come. Doctor's receptionists can be really annoying.

Partners give them authority do certain. Many people get angry with receptionist but sometimes it is the GP who has sent the patient away. For example, a patient request to see a specific doctor, they receptionist might ask the GP and the GP will tell the patient they are not available.

I'm a gp receptionist so hard hat on. I can tell you about how our practice works.

We have around 6000 patients. Most days there are 4 to 6 doctors appointments available to book over the phone for emergencies. We are told to use them for under4's or things that sound like dire emergencies only so yes we are gatekeeping those appointments, we have no choice.

There are then around 10-15 same day appointments we can book with the clinician. These are booked if you ring up with anything from rashes, lumps, headaches, pains. The clinician will either treat you or get advice from the doctor who will then book you in with themselves.

Most appointments are done via the online form, these are not same day appointments. The form goes to Dr for triage who forwards it to us with the instruction of who to book in with, themselves, clinician, physio, nurse. We don't choose who you see, we can't book with the Dr if he has instructed another professional.

The rest of the Dr's appointments are taken up with follow ups and reviews, the Dr books these or instructs us to.

There are also a few telephone appointments, we use these if someone has rang and we can't fit them in anywhere else, Dr will ring and if he decides he needs to see them he'll bring them in.

So in short yes we are gatekeeping, no we don't want to be, we're stuck. Any yes we get shouted at, abused, threatened daily. Such fun.
But then there are lovely patients who know we're doing our best and we do really try to get you in with somebody.

I’m the same. Just moved house and was worried that no GP practice would be as good as the last one. Turns out that the new one is just as good, if not slightly better in some areas. The receptionists are knowledgeable and helpful, and know exactly how to find the most appropriate care for what I need.

There aren’t enough appointments. Our Gp has 7000 patients. This isn’t new information.

Most sensible people realise this. Not to mention the wasted appointments from people who DNA.

In this situation I would wait till the surgery has closed and go to 111 - explain to them what the text from the surgery advised but that, when you tried to book any urgent appointment they told you a 2 weeks later follow up is acceptable.

111 will then send a message to your surgery telling them to book you in on the next available day for a GP - this is what happened with me when one of my twins was unwell and the other developed similar symptoms - illness not covered by Pharmacy First protocols so couldn’t go there, GP receptionist said not a GP matter and to apply ‘self-care’ treatments! However, 111 disagreed and said needed seeing appropriately and, come Monday morning, surgery called to say they’d received the 111 referral and needed to see child same day!! Was an in life riots condition until 48 hours after starting antibiotics which was why I wanted him seen on the Friday so he could start meds and wouldn’t miss school!! Ended up being off for 5 days waiting for swabs before surgery would prescribe the same meds as his twin was on!!

My GP requests a regular review of my contraception before reissuing my repeat prescription. Normally I ring up, they book a telephone consultation and we're all good. This time the receptionist says "we no longer book appointments. You have to call back at 8am tomorrow".
I explained it's not urgent or an ailment, it's basically admin, and that
a) I don't want to be desperately competing with all the ill people at 8am only to find I can't get through and I have to try again tomorrow and
b) I can't take time off work on the strength of "there's nothing wrong with me, but I won't be in today as I have to sit on hold at 8am in the hope I get an appointment later today for a very routine admin call. If I can't get through before the slots are filled up, I will repeat this tomorrow and the day after until I finally get my 10 min call with the doctor." What employer is cool with that?
I asked the receptionist if she could see that this is not an ailment, that the GP has requested it and maybe in this case the GP could just quickly call me to advise a better way to arrange this. I was very nice and calm because I know she is the difference between me being seen and not. She just got angry and said "THIS IS THE WAY WE DO IT NOW. CALL BACK TOMORROW AT 8AM".
I appreciate the difficulty of the role but some people's nastiness comes out as soon as anything is questioned. It's ludicrous.
I called back and asked could one of the nurses please do it instead, because you can book with them in advance. She wasn't sure, so they clearly haven't trained her properly, because it turned out the nurse can do this now and has taken over from the GP. What a mess.

Twice I have been given the wrong information by the receptionists. Once over a kidney infection when the receptionist wouldn’t give me an appointment because I had symptoms of a UTI and severe back pain. They told me to go the pharmacy. So I did, but as soon as I mentioned back pain to the pharmacist, they told me they couldn’t help with that as it was pointing to a kidney infection (I did tell the receptionist this!) so to call the GP. By the time I rang back there were no appointments left. You can imagine how annoyed I was!
Another time they told me to email the GP an image of something and I’d have an xray arranged. The GP received my image and rang me and said they can’t arrange X-rays and to go to A+E. It wasn’t an emergency.

My dh. Yes we have Internet and I can do it but he has mild cognitive impairment and cannot navigate these things. We can ring our surgery early and the receptionist will fill the form in for you. But what happens if I die first? Our children live too far away to do it for him as the patient has to be with you for the call and they work. I don't imagine carers will do it if that's where he ends up. He's not unwell enough to need a care home at the moment. It's on his records that I can speak for him so this works for now.