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.

I don’t think youmre being unreasonable, but I would probably have gone to the receptionist on my out to let them know.

You probably would still get an arsey attitude tbh, but at least you made the point on the spot and they could have checked how long it would still take or let them know your phone availability?

In my younger years our GP ran his surgery on a no appointment needed, just turn up basis.
He was right that in if you woke up feeling poorly you'd give it until lunchtime and 9 times our of 10 whatever it was would pass or you'd feel a bit better.

You'd still book in to see the nurse but he found it kept the waiting room for those that really needed it as opposed to having made an appointment some days ago and either being hospitalised through getting worse or getting better on your own and wasting his time.

We used to have this system at my GP surgery, via its SystmOnline webpage. You could book slots for GP appointments, GP phone calls, practice clinics and blood tests.

It was discontinued about 8 years ago and never restarted. Now it’s the big slog of submitting e-consults; navigating subsequent text-based questions asking for info you’ve already provided in the e-consult; then more messages or possibly receiving/missing a phone call; then possibly being upgraded to a triage phone call which you may or may not miss; and then up to about a month later being invited in for an actual appointment and, if you’re lucky, diagnosis/treatment.

The latter ‘system’ cannot be efficient for the GPs to run.

My sister is a teacher. She needs to speak to a GP. She will have to take a day off sick to wait for the call back. Thats more costs for the school for supply or taking PPA time off other members of staff to cover her lessons. But the alternative is for her to go without basic healthcare. It’s more efficient for GP surgeries to organise themselves like this, and with GP shortages they might have no other option, but it does mean that they are inaccessible to many people.

Hmmm. The challenge is about the clash between expectations - of course I respect everyone’s time, but if a patient needs admitting to hospital (for instance) it’s a 15min appointment, plus phoning the hospital to organise for them to be seen (can easily take 20+ mins to get through to the right admitting dr and discuss), plus printing out notes, etc.

almost EVERY patient also now says “I know it’s only meant to be one problem, but while I’m here, could you just…” which is incredibly challenging to manage;

or just the initial problem is complex and needs thought and multiple strands of investigation and management planning (very little is “simple” anymore), so whilst I’m doing my very best to run to the appointment time, I can’t always manage it.

its not a lack of respect. It’s that clinical care has to take priority.

So are you saying it's ok to have notices in surgeries saying if a patient arrives late, perhaps due to an accident en-route, they will not be seen, even if they are only two minutes late, and the GP is running 20 minutes behind in any event. It has happened to me.

Also regarding the issue of "can I just raise, do you not think that may arise from the hurdlkes patients now have to jump to get an appointment in the first place, and because getting another appointment may lead to the investment of an additional 45 minutes of patient time? I see the need if the first issue has taken 8-9 minutes but if it has taken 3-4 and the second issue can be dealt with in the 10 minute slot, I really don't see the issue.

So often it seems that practices simply don't value the patient's time and what extrapolates usually to a ten minute slot for you has already required 45 minutes, often more, of patient time to obtain.

I have worked as a GP receptionist in the past and I do totally understand your frustration. Having seen it from the other side, however I can sympathise with both sides. As receptionists, it is us that get all the stick - but we have to follow the rules that are set out by the GP partners. Ultimately it is up to them how they run their business and whether or not they are willing to ring patients back. We are simply outlining their rules to you. We get all the stick and they get all the praise (being high and mighty doctors) - however it is THEM that make these (often shitty rules) which we them have to impose....at the expense of our mental health. The doctors are able to literally hide behind us as we're the 'front line' so we get the wrath of patients. Often I would sympathise but would get in trouble if we were heard to say anything negative about the surgery - especially if on the phones as all the calls were recorded - and management would occassionally listen in. I would however, express sympathy to patients at the desk because the system isn't great and would sometimes whisper/mouth that they should complain (lol) as I didn't always agree with the 'rules'.

I did, on many occassions, sent a quick fire message to the GP asking if they could call the patient back (even though management said were not allowed to ever message GPs directly!. Jesus, My brother is a GP. They are just people....and assholes some of them! So I did at times ha. Depending on the kind of person the doctor is, some are willing to change their surgery list and will call back, but most won't and yet others tell us off for daring to ask them such a thing (think God complex)! So we'd then get the (understandable stick) from the patients. We were being shouted at from both sides. Honestly, it was like being back at school.....only I wasn't really told off at school as I was a little swot lol. Needless to say I didn't last a year in that job. It was only ever going to be temporary in aany case, but interesting.

So, yes, our receptionists were treat like shit by (occassionally aggressive) patients (owing to the difficult rules imposed on us by the GPs), treat like shit by the management and GPs in terms of having work 10.5 hr shifts with only 20 mins break and getting told off for talking to colleagues (even if just for 30 seconds!!) - and all on minimum wage! Plus I was shocked at how much we needed to know in terms of triaging to the correct person/department - there were so many options/clinic slots/timings/staff specialisms that you had to be mindful of (and you'd get in bother if you got it wrong). It wasn't always easy to decipher SystemOne with it's colour coding and ambiguous clinic slots and trying to glean information over the phone in a noisy office was a challenge as well as often struggling to understand the person on the other end if English wasn't their first language or if they were hard of hearing. It was a much tougher job that I every expected it to be.
Plus, our practice had 5 different surgery sites and nearly 30k patients. It was also a training practice so there were so many student nurses/pharmacists/doctors coming and going that you have to navigate to the correct area.
Anyway, I digress. The protocol at our GP surgery was that we could not guarantee the exact time the the dr would ring the patient back. We could suggest it would probably be morning or afternoon but we were not allowed to be more specific. The clinician would ring the patient a maximum of 2 times if they did not pick up first time and that was that. If you can imagine, the dr might only have a limited time slot to ring you back and then may be training for the other part of the day. So I get that also.

So, what can the GP do about that? They are not a personalized/exact timed service when it comes to call bacls - best to make a face to face appointment in that case.

The receptionist has no power though.....(I should know, I was one)....it's the GPs that makes the rules. I was never arsey though. I knew patients were frustrated and apologised on behalf of the GPs on many occassions. That was all I could do.....

But they don't let you do that without a phone call first. Its shambolic. Its no one person's fault but as with many things, its where modern life now doesn't look anything like it was and systems aren't adapting to keep up

I commented in response to people asking why someone couldn’t have their phone at work
as it is I usually take annual leave for an appointment

They are not a personlized service Wow

Had to reschedule DCs Drs appointment with a specialist because we waited 10 months for the appointment and it unfortunately coincided with a mock GCSE exam. Luckily we were given a cancellation within a short amount of time. DC received text to remind of old appointment we had canceled. We telephoned to confirm again that we were not attending as had been given another date, DC had mock exam etc etc this appointment had already been cancelled and rescheduled. Day of mock exam DC was getting texts about twice cancelled appointment just before walking into the exam then at lunch turned on their phone to receive a telling off for non attendance which really upset them. I was fuming

Its bloody guaranteed that I call for a GP call back at 8.30am, watch the phone all day and they call after 5.30pm nursery pick up when speaking uninterrupted is impossible.

One doctor said to me once 'sorry is it a bad time?'

I said i have a 2 year old, its always a bad time!!

I hope you complained.

It really is difficult. I do appreciate that. We had so many patients at the practice that I worked at, that people were waiting hours before they were called back - and by the time we got round to calling them back (we'd sometimes take 800 calls in a day between a group of 5 or 6 of us) - there'd be no appointments left.(We worked on an 'on the day' appointments system to see the GP. I used to advise patients to ring back first thing the next day- or even send someone on their behalf to the surgery to make the appointment for them at the front desk. At least you patients could then actually guarantee to get an appointment that day (subject to their symptoms necessitating a GP appointment). There must be a better way though..... I think our surgery was just too big/unwieldy to be sufficiently easy to get through on the phone line.