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 understand those saying to keep your phone on you. How can anyone in a customer facing role do this? Imagine you’re half way though getting your shopping scanned at Tesco? The checkout assistant gets a call and what? Has to scream “sorry gotta leave” and sprint to the staff room leaving you half way through getting served?

Because you only have a few seconds to answer. Definitely not enough time to explain the customer, excuse yourself, go and tell your manager and hope someone can come and take over.

What if you’re on the phone to a customer? Do you hang up on them? Because again there wouldn’t be time to explain and have a back and forth especially as the customer is likely to be unhappy at being told you’re about to hang up on them to have a personal appointment.

What about teachers? They can’t leave the classroom alone? Do they just have the appointment in front of the class? Or do they answer and tell the gp to wait on the line for ten minutes (likely more) while someone (who?) comes and takes over?

Being expected to drop everything and take a very private call at a moments notice, with only a few seconds to answer is not reasonable.

Our GP always rings on a withheld number. On an iPhone you can block withheld numbers, also block calls when driving. Also at certain times of the day my phone will not connect as the network is too busy. Some parts of the house have no signal. Some parts of our village have no signal. My annual medication review has taken 3 months and counting.

Yes I’d contact practice manager. There’s lots of jobs where people can’t have a personal phone so schedule call for a break.

I remember a time (some 10 years ago) when they would send letters out to people with a username and a code to get into an appointments page online, and you could select an appointment. WTF happened to this system?!

What happened in my NHS Trust, @BatchCookBabe, is that there was a suggested appointment on the screen; and if you clicked on ‘reschedule’ (because you couldn’t make it to that suggested time & date) and got the ‘the team will contact you’ message, that (a) the message wasn’t passed on, so (b) nobody contacted you, and so (c) you got a DNA letter.

And of course the team were left twiddling their fingers at the suggested appointment time, while the patient knew nothing about it.

I raised it with PALS repeatedly. It’s a Trust-wide error. Must be costing ££millions.

Well, what else have you got to do? Work, looking after kids/ageing parents? Not important. I have turned up at the surgery for booked appointments to be told they've been cancelled (they didn't phone to say, and when investigated, their staff cancelled by mistake, which would be fine if they just apologised and got me in as soon as possible) and that I need to make another appointment. So take another day off work, then? It's not like we have to pay tax and should have the right to be seen, is it?
Do complain, because the AE nurse told me everyone turns up at hospital just because they can't get help from the GP, and that literally can kill people because urgent cases aren't being helped soon enough.

When I first started working in prison, it felt odd, but very liberating, to be without my phone. We could go and check our phones at lunch time if we wanted, but we only get 30 minutes and it takes that to get out and back in sometimes, so no one bothers. Family have my desk number for emergencies so I’m not completely non contactable.

I actually work in prison healthcare, and part of my job is sitting in with prisoners on telephone consultations. We have to call the prisoners over from their cells, and they have to be back for roll call so they can’t sit around waiting all day. I often have to phone consultants or their secretaries to chase and remind them that prisoners can’t sit and wait all day for their call.

I understand your frustration OP. I would add in the days before phone appointments were available you could easily sit in a Doctors waiting room for 30 or 40 mins past the appointment time. It's the nature of a Doctors work. As far as considering the workload of patients. If every patient was given that consideration & Doctors adhered to every individuals timescales it would never work. Thankfully you did receive your call & hopefully with a good outcome. Do I think this story deserves a complaint, I'm sorry but no.

The receptionist at our doctors is so awful that DH and I have moved to a different practice. I used to dread having to call.

All driving jobs in cars and vans and trucks and lorries
All cycling and biking jobs
Medical doctor / nurse / HCP
Therapist / counsellor
Teaching and school jobs when on duty
Nursery / childcare jobs around children with a mobile phone bar
Hospitality / catering jobs with safety regs
Lecturing / tutoring / teaching professorial roles when in class
Roofers / on-site tradies with safety regs
Field workers eg engineers with safety regs
Military personnel
Lawyers when with a client or in court
Any job when interviewing or conducting a meeting
Shop workers because they’re not allowed
Prison officers because they are not allowed
Emergency Services where they are not allowed
Any job where confidential time 1:1 with others is necessary, eg with a client

And hundreds of others

The way they do this and the appointment system seems to be just for the unemployed.

Again in the days before telephone appointments it was expected to attend the surgery in the same way you would for a hospital appointment. This would inevitably mean time either off work or away from work, including a wait when there. If during the telephone appointment the Doctor decided your symptoms justified a face to face to face appointment this would mean more time away from work. Im not sure what the expectations are here when it comes to patients consultations with a GP.

When I make an appointment for a phone interview the receptionist gives me a 4 hour window. However if I go on the NHS app it will tell me the approx time its scheduled for. It doesnt always come at that exact moment but is a better guide. Doctors are a bit likes tradespeople in the sense that they cant always say how long an appointment their end will take. Or an unexpected emergency can arise. So a phone appointment overruns. However there needs to be some appreciation that other people may also not be in a position to sit by the phone.

Im encountering more and more GPs who seem to think the world revolves around them. They want this, they expect that...they cant do the next thing. They only want to work 2 days because they've got other more lucrative private things to do. The list goes on. It makes you wonder why any of.them bothered to become doctors in the first place. They want all the big rewards without breaking a sweat, as if the world owes them a living or something. A GP in my sister's town owns one of the biggest houses in the are... it's massive in a very vulgar, ' non-doctor' sort if way, and there are always flash cars outside.....I think they've all been watching too many American medical dramas. The days of the lovely, caring GP whonknows your name are well and truly gone. Some GPs arecstill brilliant, but I think a lot ofvthrm are taking the piss. I wonder whose taxes they think paid for all the hospitals that they trained in so that they could one day hrlp the public.......or not.

I work in a nursery. We're not allowed phones on the floor for safeguarding reasons. All phones are on silent, in a phone cabinet in the office. We can use them in the office or the staffroom.

We're also ratio'd in, so it's not fair or practical for someone to just disappear for 30 minutes without notice.

Before I retired I worked as a nurse on a day case unit. Phones had to be left in your locker.

They have absolutely no right to treat you like you missed the appointment if they overran. They behave as though patients exist in a state of permanent availability as if no one in the world has a job with demands other than a GP. It's ridiculous.

But the reality is that doctor’s schedules ALWAYS run late and if you have the kind of job where you can’t step away for a quick private call then you probably need to book time off for the appointment, as annoying as that is.

But she did. She booked a break that allowed for a 20 minute overrun. GPs should manage their time more honestly and recognise that many people can't just take time off work with a wide window of leeway for the appointment running late.

Time away from work can be managed. Its the uncertain time that is the problem. If I have a f2f I'll organise cover for the whole afternoon or morning and then just relieve the cover person if im back on time, but I really cant justify that for a phonecall and I cant get someone to cover without prior notice. What people are expecting is a service that works in the context of the modern working world, not one that assumes everyone is sitting at home or behind a desk.

Unfortunately, I think too many people are unable to think outside of their own bubble and mobile phones have made people think that everyone should be accessible at all times. I used to work in a school and had a letting manager have a go at me for not answering my phone on a weekday morning. She was humbled when I explained that I was a teacher and returning her (multiple missed) calls at lunchtime. It was different when the appointments were face to face as you were actually sat there, not trying to shoehorn it into your already busy life.

Yanbu. Every time I've had this. It's rude. I'm lucky I'm in a job now I can put the phone next to me but it would have been impossible in previous job. If your told you phone between different times it should be between those times or the receptionist phones between those times to explain gp is running late.

I'm sick of how poor GP services are. There's not a week goes past where my GP practice isn't sending a group text out, telling all their patients not to contact the surgery for one reason or another (and the situation has worsened significantly since covid). There's a real culture clash between primary and acute health care, can you imagine where we'd be if hospital doctors took the same attitude to their patients? Closing for lunch. Closing for staff training. Closing for long weekends.

All GP's should be open 7 days, late night. Work in shifts!

I contact my own GP practice once in a blue moon and every time it's an annoying, obstacle laden endurance test to be seen. And I detest discussing personal matters with their admin staff, that should never have been allowed to become such an accepted culture.
I'm actually seriously considering making an official complaint about my GP practice to the governing body, because the 'service' they provide is diabolical.

I am with you Op, this is a completely frustrating experience and a symptom of the holy cow that is the NHS.

In contrast, I recently had private treatment, through health insurance, and had a telephone appointment with my Consultant scheduled for 14.50, which happened, bang on the nose of 14.50

It’s a busy specialty and he no doubt had a lot of patients, both NHS and private, but when the private hospital establishes some performance standards, it seems they are adhered to. Or maybe it’s just a clearer line between service user and £££.

I get that GPs are extremely busy, and have massive expectations put on them by the NHS, but the patients they inconvenience are often under similar time pressures, and it’s about time that was recognised.

YANBU. The implication is that doctors don’t call anyone with their own pressing schedules. I’m having the same - they said they’d call yesterday but gave me no time window at all. I missed both calls by seconds and I was doing my best to drop what I was doing and answer. It’s not possible for me to be ready and available for a private call for the entirety of 8-6pm. You actually had an appointment so they could’ve easily messaged you to say it was going to run late!

Oh my gosh i completely agree! My GP gives windows of either 8-1 or 1-6 as the times they might call. I work, and have in person meetings that would be considered rude to leave. I cannot simply sit staring at my phone all afternoon! But if I miss the call back, I get such a lecture and told I should be ready to answer at any moment. I would not expect to take an afternoon off work to sit in the GP surgery all afternoon, so it really isn't a fair alternative.