I upset a lady at GP surgery today

[TheQuirkyMaker]

A queue of five people in front at surgery. Waiting room pretty full. Only one receptionist available. An elderly lady at the front was telling the receptionist that she had just picked up meds at the chemist, and they had been changed from her regular ones to different ones. There was back and forth discussion, and every few minutes the lady would say, "but nobody told me they would be changed". I asked the lady in front of me how long this had been going on and she said "about 10 minutes". After a full further 15 minutes I said "Look, this is getting us no where, none of us will get to see a doctor if we can't sign in". I got a bit of condemnation along the lines of "she was entitled to her time", but I said, "this is reception, not a consultation. Just repeating that she wasn't told her medication would be changed is getting us no where. This could go on forever".
People got a bit sniffy with me, and I got a few stares, but I was right, wasn't I?
I get we should be tolerant of older people, but there has to be a bit of give and take.

Change in medication is a huge thing for someone elderly! I know this from experience when my mum gets her bucket load of pills and can tell at a glance if there’s something different, and will spend my entire visit talking about it. But the receptionist should have managed it better, like asking her to just step to the side whilst she checks in the queue, and then maybe have a discussion about it afterwards.

It was reception's job to move on this woman, not yours. She was obviously upset about it and didn't need and overly assertive person making matters worse for her. Not chutzpah but rude, pushy and inconsiderate.

Could of been a temp or her first week maybe. Usually they would have her stand aside and call a nurse or something. Would be awful if you were having to stand behind her if you were really falling down sick.

What a load of poppycock, more like.

She didn't happen to have a bag of well-handled bananas about her person, did she?

Were you late for your appointment? Presumably if the waiting room was full, then you weren’t.

Why so rude though?

You could just have said “excuse me, would it be possible for the rest of us to check in while this is being sorted out?”

It was absolutely none of your business to refer to the content of another patient’s conversation.

And I don’t believe your timescales. After the alleged total of 25 minutes the doctors would have been sticking their heads out to see where their patients were.

It was reasonable to ask about checking in, no need for your attitude.

Wonder if the OP would have been quite so snippy if it had been a young male in front of her? Or an middle aged woman looking a bit more antagonistic?

I cant stand when this happens. The receptionist should have been far more firm with her, her asking the same question over and over again is ludicrous. The receptionist should have taken her to the side and told her to wait until a dr was free to explain it to her. FFS.

Anyone holding up a queue for that length of time is inconsiderate.

I have been in this position, albeit not in a queue. Medication name had changed and I was worried about this. The receptionist did not seem to get my point at all and kept telling me that if I needed a repeat prescription (I didn't I was asking about the prescription I had been supplied with) I should put it in the box. I gave up and went home to check generic names. But had I been given the wrong prescription (entirely possible) and it had caused a problem the receptionist would have been in error and I might have been ill (or, given they were anti-depressants and statins, possibly worse). Her correct response should have been to arrange a telephone consultation for me - or she could have just checked the bloody box of pills against what I was supposed to have, something available on her computer.
Receptionists with no medical knowledge gatekeeping are dangerous.
I think I am probably what OP thinks of as an 'elderly lady'. NB my GP has digital check-in, so no queues for that. Hate it, but useful.
IMHO OP was a bit rude to elderly lady - could have stepped in and helped perhaps, instead of carping?
Edited for misplaced comma.

Does anyone really believe that a doctor’s surgery was brought to a standstill for 25 minutes and, but for the OP’s heroic intervention it would have been longer? Incidentally-more Mumsnet ageism.

This.

But enjoy swooshing your cape,OP. The world needs heroes. Those who run towards danger. Etc.

No... the inconsiderate one was the person hogging the receptionist preventing other people from booking in.
I'm a clinician... if you're not booked in... and the appointment time is missed... you've missed your appointment....I also don't have time to be going out to the waiting room and checking if you've turned up or not.

YANBU. This is ultimately a failure of the surgery to manage patients effectively. You will always get those selfish time wasters who consider only themselves and nobody else that's being impacted by their behaviour frankly. If the surgery had handled it properly it wouldn't have needed a patient to intervene.

Such compassion, exactly what you want from a clinician 🙃

And just to reiterate, reception should have moved the woman on, not a rude person in the queue who seems so proud of her assertiveness. Just rude

"compassion" for someone who is prepared to make other people miss their appointments / be late because they want to stand at the front of the queue banging on about something that has been patiently explained to them?

Why?

As I've not yet mastered the art of time travel and there's only so much time in the day and more workload than time ... I'm not sure what you expect.
We already eat/drink on the hoof ... if we're lucky.

Only if they wanted to attract all sorts of grief about breach of their NHS contract.

ive had to ask the person at the till if they could ‘scan and talk at the same time’ as they kept stopping scanning when it was their turn in the conversation- and if the other person came to a juicy bit in the gossip… and both were totally oblivious to the queue 🙈
I felt like a dick but it was ridiculous

It seems like the OP was loudly making comments about this woman and her health query, and directing these comments to the queue in general and to the woman herself, not just to the receptionist.

The private nature of patients' health-related conversations at reception desks is often reinforced by a sign that asks queuers to keep back a couple of meters. Even when there isn't such a sign it is obvious that we should treat these exchanges as private, as a matter of basic respect.

It doesn't matter that the "elderly" woman herself was being noisy about her own issues. It doesn't even matter that the woman was being unreasonably inconsiderate of the queue behind her. The stress that patients often feel in these exchanges is part of the reason why we all have to be respectful, and mindful of their privacy.

We also have to be respectful of staff. Stress breeds stress and chucking in our own anger is a sure way to escalate the hostile, rude, intimidatory atmosphere that signs in the GP surgery warn us that their staff do not have to tolerate.

The OP had an obvious alternative to the way in which she actually behaved. Instead of making loud privacy-intruding comments about the woman she could have approached the receptionist and quietly requested to be checked in before the other issue was resolved.

I think she wanted to perform anger. She chose to use the queue in the same way as she is now using MN - venting her frustration and her sense of being in the right. Basically saying YABU.

That's fine on MN, especially in AIBU threads. Not so much in a GP surgery.

The receptionist should have dealt with this more efficiently. You can’t send an old lady home with potentially the wrong drugs. “I don’t know the reason why but I will get the GP to review and call you”.

I fully agree with you, OP. I am really glad you spoke up, because it does not seem like anyone else would have, the receptionist included.

From what you describe, it sounds like the place is badly run. At my GP office signing in isn't even required. They expect you to be present in the waiting room at your agreed upon appointment or to have canceled before hand. If you are not there, they just move on with the next patient. It's not like they will run out of patients if someone misses an appointment. If it happens repeatedly, they might have words with you. Your insurance company might also be unhappy with missed appointments, unless you have a legitimate reason.

My point is, that I think you handled it as well as you could in such a poorly designed system.

Again, it's reception's job to sort it out. And you don't know why the woman was so upset and confused about her prescription. So yes, compassion and a little understanding wouldn't go amiss. OP thinks they are being assertive and doing everyone a favour whereas they are just being a cnut. I'd say she made most people there feel uncomfortable.

We don’t have a check in screen at my GP surgery. Thank goodness!!

We have actual staff to talk to and really helpful reception staff at that.

Surely you need better trained staff to answer the phones and speak to patients instead of screens that break down regularly, judging by this thread?

We also don’t have annoying online appointments systems. Just the phone and a person at the end of it.