To be annoyed at the GP receptionist for being arsey about this?

[SneakyGremlin]

Had a GP phone appointment booked for 13:10 today, for something that needs sorting today (think medication review/replacement). Took my break at work from 13:00-13:30. 13:35 came, still no call, so I went back to work.

Finished work at 4:00 p.m, checked my phone and saw a missed call at 13:41 - so I rang back asking could I possibly get the GP to call me now as I'm not longer in work.

GP receptionist huffs, says she'll try but I should have kept an eye on my phone as they can't always help when it's the patients who missed the appointments. When I then point out to her that actually they rang half an hour after my scheduled appointment, which is why I missed it, she said that that shouldn't be relevant and I should always be by the phone because it's known that GPs run late sometimes.

AIBU to want to complain, or at least mention to the GP who I'm still waiting to call that some of us can't stop doing our jobs and wait for a call just because THEY are running late? If they'd sent a text or something that they were running behind I could have taken my break later and probably kept the appointment.

It feels like I'm being told off like a naughty child because THEY were late.

This. 100%.
If there are any GPs on the tjread perhaps they could hop on and explain why GP time must be respected but patient time is not and appears to have no consequence.

I can't believe that the technology isn't out there to manage this electronically.
On line parents evenings have happened in many schools since COVID.
Parents can book a slot at a time that suits them and after the first go, most parents really like it.
The teacher can also double or triple lock slots if a longer conversation is needed.
Why can't the NHS do the same? Doctors would be in sole charge of their appoinyments

I read an article that stated Scotland are introducing non urgent drop in GP surgeries similar to countries like Spain. This would be extra to the regular surgeries available as they already practice. An excellent idea & not before time.

I don't think this is NHS vs private.
I think it's GPs (and others) vs consultants.
I've recently finished treatment that went on over a couple of years and involved several phone appointments with a consultant - these were always on time or at most a couple of mins late.

I'm interested in what people thought before telephone appointments. Take for example waking up with a uti not bad enough to stay of work yet the only way to get the necessary antibiotic was to call the surgery in the morning for an appointment. The only appointment available on the day could be for 2pm.If your work was in a different area to the surgery this would inevitably mean at least a half day off work if not the whole day depending on travel time etc.Was this also seen as a massive inconvenience to the patient, or simply part of the system involving a GP appointment 🤔

How would that work? There is no way the receptionists at my local surgery would have time to keep texting me updates on when the GP is likely to call me.

However, if I told them that I get a very short break and that I can only answer the phone between 13.10 to 13.30, they would absolutely do their best to get the GP to accommodate that.

In an ideal world, OP would get a call at 13.10, but it's not an ideal world so she has to look for ways to get around this in future.

I am with you OP. What if you are a techer or a bus driver? You cant be hanging around on the phone for hours either side of a reasonable lunch break. I hate the attittude of 'do as i say not as I do' that some GP surgeries have. And it's not the GPs, its the practice managemnet. It would have cost them virtually nothing to text you and say the GP list was running late.

Consultants have a much smaller patient load.

When GP appointments in person run late you wouldn’t generally leave. I treat phone appointments the same and expect a possible up to 45minute delay. Some appointments take the GP longer as we know so I always keep it in mind.

Disagree sorry.

If i have made a f2f appt with a GP, this is more likely to mean that i have been able to get an appt either on my day off, or i have authorisation in advance to be away from work, with the expectation that they might run a bit late.

As a patient is also physically at the surgery, there is no risk of them being wrongly accused of being the cause of a ‘missed appt’ as was op by the receptionist.

If i have booked a telephone appt, i am not going to waste a whole day off work. I am going to go into work and get some authorised time for a phone call. As i am in work, i can’t sit there all day and not speak to customers in case the phone rings.

I also have to say that i don’t think any of my f2f GP appts have been as much an hour late. Whereas phone appointments have sometimes been well over an hour late.

Op is also lucky that she seemed to receive a call later in the evening from the GP. Many GP surgeries don’t open that late and therefore op would have been stuck without her medication. She also had to argue to get a call back.

Can you seriously not think of any jobs where it would be a problem to just pause and take a phone call?

Ok so it’s not workable to keep the patient updated - impractical.

But then why did the receptionist mark her as “did not attend”? How do you justify this?

What is the point of setting an appointment time if I am actually supposed to keep my WHOLE day free?

I am really interested in how you can justify this.

You are conflating issues here.

If i had an acute UTI and called in the morning and I was told I could only be seen at 2pm I’d notify work to say that I was unwell and would definitely be unavailable from 1:30pm as i had a 2pm appointment.

The key word is appointment - ie a set, pre-agreed time.

GP missing the appointment due to emergencies is something we can all understand.

Receptionist (note: NOT GP) marking her as “did not attend” in this scenario is unacceptable.

She was available at the appointed time for her scheduled appointment.

THEY were late. For valid reasons but OP did nothing wrong here.

Thank goodness the required ABs are now available from the pharmacy.

Had a phone appointment for elderly disabled mother, anytime between 8am and 7pm. Dr rang 3 times within the space of 4 minutes while I was helping mum in the toilet, i looked on her online account and it said because i'd missed the call i had to restart with another econsult. Saying that, other doctors at the surgery have been much more understanding!

Not for everyone though, it’s only a certain age group
i can only get them from the GP as I need 5 days worth or more

Oh I hate this sort of thing, our GP phone appointments will only let the phone ring three times then they hang up and register you as a missed call. So you have to actually stare at your phone with finger poised until they ring.

Just been to the pharmacy to collect my medication, also took down the email of the practice manager (it's all one building) and I'm going to send a message pointing out it's unreasonable to say I missed an appointment that they were late to, and there needs to be a way to contact patients if there's a delay.

I get messages on the NHS app when I have an appointment coming up or I'm due a flu jab so why can't these messages be used to tell me that there's a delay on the day at the GP surgery?

Good for you OP.

I would like to ask all the people who have given her a hard time -

Would you keep your phone with you during work if you had been explicitly instructed not to by your line manager, and if that manager could and would follow up by disciplining you?

Would you likewise consider taking a whole day off work to answer that call if it meant losing a whole day's pay, and that would make it hard for you to do a full supermarket shop next week?

I bet, I just bet, that loads of the people getting at you OP have no idea how petty and difficult some LMs in service, hospitality and retail can be! And you cannot afford to piss them off.

People should not have to choose between getting into trouble at work and accessing basic healthcare.

Top tip for all: when you're on the list for a call and they won't give you a specific appointment time, you can check the NHS app appointments list and usually see your actual appointment slot. Doesn't mean that's when they'll call you but at least if you have a large swathe of time it might happen within you have an idea.

See this is what I did, and why I booked my break to be in that timeframe!

If I take a day off that's £96 I miss out on.

I work in a prison. We're not allowed to take phones in, for obvious reasons. I also work a bonkers shift pattern, so might get one day off a week. I'd rather not spend my one day off sitting by the phone, so 111 has effectively become my GP. My surgery simply cannot get it into their heads that I don't have access to my phone during my shift, nor that I could be working a thirteen hour day.

This is just a dangled carrot ahead of the May elections. They're doing pilot clinics in a handful of locations, GP's are already saying it won't work.

My surgery (west coast scotland) stick rigidly to a 5.30pm close. No late nights. They also close for an hour every day at lunchtime, ie at the very time most people might be able to get away from work for a bit. They've also switched off econsult, which I thought was a brilliant resource. The one thing I felt had made a positive difference in the last 20 or 30 years, and they've switched it off.

I also think people are not always aware of the work culture in areas like service/ front of house.

Receptionists in my experience get treated badly by the public but also often by their managers.

At the last place I worked, the receptionist's manager used to deliberately try catching her out for tiny infractions, for example, ringing the desk from an outside line at 4.59pm to check she didn't down tools one minute early, or deliberately setting her a task like manual handling but then coming over to assess whether the receptionist's footwear was 'office appropriate' and ticking her off when she found she'd changed into trainers to move the boxes as asked.

These "infractions" would be noted in writing and discussed during annual appraisal etc.

I suspect a number of the defensive posters on this thread are doctors, and as much as they might have stresses in their jobs, have no concept of a working environment where some twit basically gets to tell you exactly where you need to be every minute, what shoes to wear, are you smiling enough and so on.