To ask why people think it’s okay to abuse NHS staff?

[notafanofthisanymore]

I’m NHS admin. I just got a call through to me and I was the wrong person to help, but as it was a simple query (think where to go as opposed to anything medical), I tried to help the patient.

I understand that having health issues is stressful. But I’ve just been called a useless thick bitch and told that my job is the reason the NHS is sinking, because I told this patient something they didn’t like. I was then told that if this patient died on the way to their appointment it would be blood on my hands, and I should hope they don’t.

I’m just baffled. I was polite, answered this person’s question and got abused because they didn’t like the answer (having to go somewhere else for something they needed). In what world is this acceptable?

two words: fucking rude.

Having worked for the nhs for over twenty years I remind myself that I choose to walk through those doors every single day and that I'm being paid for the privilege too.patients and relatives are often facing fear,pain,uncertainty and frustration at a sometimes dysfunctional service so I understand that I may not get to see their best side...strangely enough I can count of the fingers of one hand the times I've been subjected to rudeness or abuse !...

Being insulted and abused is not okay.

Patients may be otherwise ‘rude,’ giving frustrated opinion on the service they are not receiving, navigating delay, cancellation or indifference and not being listened to, facing unhelpful staff attitudes, apathy and not actually being cared for. Patients should remain calm and respectful. Staff should have empathy and professionalism.

With the NHS as underfunded and poor as it is, staff should anticipate there will be some level of ‘rudeness’ and complaint and have more training to help them deal with this. (I repeat that personal insults and abuse are not acceptable.) There seems to be a lack of understanding at what some patients have endured, certainly by some posters here, who clearly have no direct experience of the frustrations some patients are talking about. I doubt the OP has a clear idea of what the unpleasant patient is currently going through. People are not generally abusive, but most of us have our tipping point. If you waited over two hours in a restaurant for your order to be taken and the waitress then just shrugged her shoulders and said others had been waiting longer, would you not complain? If the waitress told you that you now needed to change tables and begin your wait all over again, because the table you had been shown to was now for a different type of customer, wouldn’t you be a little bit mad?

I have recent experience with the NHS.

My mother’s care was woefully inadequate. She died. I regret that I didn’t start shouting sooner and was too polite, naively thinking that someone would eventually give a shit. They did not. I didn’t understand that no-one actually took any responsibility for my mum’s care.

My care has been mixed. Some departments and staff have been excellent and I am grateful. Some departments (and unfortunately staff too) are failing miserably. It is largely systemic failure, but offen staff viewed through a patient’s eyes can appear rude and uncaring too.

I don’t think the PP is asking for medical information about staff, merely and apology and explanation. E.g. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Jones cannot see you tomorrow as she is no longer in clinic. We understand this is causing you and/or your family inconvenience/lost money and stress. Can you come in on x date instead?”

You seem to have a ‘them v us’ attitude towards patients. At least twice on this thread you have jumped on posters, seemingly misunderstanding what they are saying. I appreciate it’s probably been a long, hot day and you have been insulted by the patient Maybe some time away from your customer facing role would help? Cutting patients some slack when they are under pressure (and experiencing all the other negative things others have mentioned) might be a good idea too.

I’m sorry you were insulted. I don’t think anybody thinks this is okay.

The NHS is a massive,huge mess, which unfortunately I have to deal with on a regular basis. Sheer incompetence, basic mis communications are ALWAYS dealt with by someone insisting 'its not my fault'. Don't care. Can tell you whos fault it definitely isn't . Mine. Seemingly grossly overstaffed,by people who have zero interest in helping sick people. Fed up with the useless,freeloading bastards.

Firstly, I have never said I exoect to be told about somebody's medical information. However, the words "we apologise for the unavoidable inconvenience which is due to extenuating circumstances, would be appropriate.

Secondly, I have never abused anybody and don't believe anybody should be abused and fund your extrapolation, based purely on yiur imagination, quite extraordinary.

NHS here too
we get loads of rude people I tell them I’ll terminate the call if they don’t calm down!
my friend works at Tesco tho and says it’s just as bad in there I think it affects anyone who deals with people!

No one thinks they are entitled to their doctors personal medical information 🙄 patients are however entitled to be told a reason their appointment was cancelled. My dental appointment was cancelled because my dentist was sick. That's fine, I hope he gets better soon and it's a whole lot less of a kick in the teeth than "he just couldn't be bothered today" or "someone's rearranged the calendar and not told you so it will be next week now instead". If patients are told their doctor is sick they will be a lot more understanding and less likely to be rude than if they think it's yet another admin fuck up after a long line of admin fuck ups or he just couldn't be bothered. As such they are much less likely to be hostile when receiving the news.

Also, that poster did not claim that you need to abuse your doctor for that information. You've made that up. She said it would make upset, frustrated and in pain patients less likely to be rude if you give them a reason for cancelling their appointment after they have waited a long time while being unwell. And she is correct.

Obviously it's never ok to be abusive towards medical staff no matter how unwell you are. But I have been abused my several doctors to the point where I won't allow one to touch me anymore unless my husband is present to advocate for me and I needed a psychiatrist to get me through my antenatal care after years of pain and dismissal at the hand of gynaecologists and even then a vile midwife shouted at me for starving my baby and made me feel 2 foot tall when I'd requested the feeding team three times after I gave birth because my daughter couldn't latch. So as far as I'm concerned unless they're nice as pie, talk to me with the utmost respect and ask if they can touch me every single time before doing anything, they can get fucked. If I wasn't so painfully polite I would tell them that, but I am polite and have never treated them the way they treat me, mostly through fear tbh because there's a power imbalance.

Couldn't agree more. When I was bleeding all over the floor in a & e having a miscarriage and wailing like a banshee with a broken heart only one kind soul looked like his heart was breaking for me and did everything he could for me. All the other staff treated me with pure contempt and told me to stop making so much noise and wait until Gynae is available. I wanted 10 hours, got no sleep or food then told them to fuck themselves i'd rather grieve my baby at home and left AMA. I've never hated a whole room full of people so much in my life as I did that day. Lots of them were standing round chatting all night despite doing fuck all. Lazy uncaring bastard's.

It goes both ways.

My daughter's consulant is very rude, if I spoke to a NHS staff member like the way he does to me...I'd be pulled up on it.

He's just unpleasant.

I’m disabled and have spent more time than I’d like in hospital and attending appointments.

i am never rude to nhs staff or private staff because I dare not - some have been horrendously abusive to me even when I am being polite so god only knows how they would behave if I was rude.

i now go private where possible because at least you get a modicum of politeness from the HCP that way.

yes, I have made multiple complaints and received multiple apologies.

I’ve never verbally abused anybody and don’t condone it however I think there is a massive issue with the NHS thinking they are above any other service and the British public should just put up with shit service with zero explanation, no apologies or attempts to rectify service that often just isn’t good enough.

I also think NHS staff should realise they’re not treated any worse than other sectors. Try retail and education.

And the patients are no better!

I was chatting today about how the BBC and the NHS are on the wrong track with their self-congratulatory posters and ads.

The BBC reminds me just how much content I don't use or value. The NHS ones seem like spending money to whine about how hard done by they are, when they could have spent money on making the service more effective.

As a nurse my team get abused on a daily basis. We visit housebound patients yet they spit at us, hit us, verbally abuse us, make inappropriate remarks…….yet we can’t send them elsewhere - there are no consequences to their actions for them - but my staff are at breaking point with it

It is. Our doctors surgery has a sign reminding patients to be respectful. Our local post office has had to put up a sign saying abuse will not be tolerated and they reserve the right to refuse to serve any customer that is abusive. I never used to see signs like that anywhere.

at a guess smaller number of people ?

Frustrations overspill due to long waiting times 😣

I don't think anyone thinks it's OK. I think you get to talk to people who are ill, worried, stressed and quite literally at the end of their tether trying to get help, and that makes people behave badly.

I am surprised NHS staff don't get more training on how to support worried people without inflaming the situation. I'm not saying that's what happened in your example OP, but IME some NHS staff do seem very good at making a bad situation worse in the way they handle disgruntled "customers".

When you woek in a customer facing role you realise how unintelligent vast amounts of people are.

My Cardiologist is also a self important, dismissive, little man. I had to fight for tests (bloods, echo) which he allowed with a condescending tone to humour me.

I then had a call to go into hospital for an urgent angiogram & treatment 🙄.

I'm just impressed someone answered the phone!

GP staff( not so much GPs) and mental health services are particularly dreadful and seem to be a law unto themselves. As regards MH services I simply don’t understand how they get away with what they do.

Agreed, our GPs are brilliant. The receptionists are a nightmare to get past.

Agree. I am gobsmacked how little effort there was to communicate with me what was going on while I was in hospital. I was fully alert, yet was treated like an object rather than an intelligent person who would want to understand what was happening and what the plan was