Why aren’t doctor’s receptionists more discrete?

[BakedPotatoBeansCheeseColeslaw]

I’m waiting in the doctor's surgery this morning for something routine.

I woman has turned up wailing that she doesn’t feel very well and asking to see a doctor. The receptionist is doing the “triage” with her but it is extremely public. The woman herself is extremely loud but she’s clearly not mentally very well as she has announced to the room that she thinks she is having a nervous breakdown. However the woman on reception is practically shouting the questions.

I know this woman’s name, date of birth, first line of address and what medication she is currently taking. It’s all very embarrassing.

AIBU to think if doctor’s receptionists are going to ask questions about your medical problem, they should do so privately and not to a room full of patients?

Only one pedant per corner?🤣

Me too.

I find that quite hard in pharmacies when I have to give my name, date of birth and/or address in front of a queue of people and sometimes discuss my medication, I don’t enjoy the people behind or beside me hearing those details

My experience of doctor's receptionists has not been good. The worst was years ago, when I was made to wait for an hour and a half with a sick baby, even though others volunteered to give me their place in the queue. My son would have died that night if, when the gp finally saw him, he hadn't sent him to hospital for an emergency operation.
More recently, I was told my husband, who was ill and has dementia and cancer, would have to wait a week for a phone consultation. This was remedied when I rang the oncology department of our hospital who responded with instructions for an urgent appointment and a series of tests which resulted in his admittance to hospital and avoided the kidney damage that he would have suffered if we had been forced to wait.

Last week I rang to tell the receptionist at our surgery that I had been sent the wrong eye drops again. When I told her they were not the ones that had been prescribed, I was astounded when she asked why I couldn't use them.

Receptionists are the gatekeepers of the NHS, until you have negotiated past them and reached the professionals who, in my experience, are usually caring, you are nowhere. It seems to me that much higher standards of training are called for, whether about aspects of confidentiality, respect or training that makes them more able to recognise the serious nature of the conditions that some patients are presenting and their urgent need for medical attention.

One of the receptionists at my GP, I think of her as Pauline from The League of Gentlemen, could double as a train announcer at the local station, which is 200 m away, from her desk.

These days to get an appointment you apply online and if you are lucky get an appointment within 30 days. So you don’t have to ask her stuff much.

I recall during Covid, when we attended my GP’s for an appointment, they made you wait outside the front door, then speak into the camera outside to tell them your name and asked what your appointment was for before they’d let you into the building!

So any random sod that was walking past in the street could bloody hear! Ludicrous.

I had an amusing recent encounter with a gp receptionist when I lost most of my hearing due to an ear infection. I couldn’t hear what was being asked and the woman behind the desk seemed to think that shouting while looking away at her screen would help me. Luckily, some of the other patients who were waiting in the queue came to my assistance!

Do you or the ‘pedant’ seriously think that after a lifetime of schooling, being corrected on a chat forum by a random is going to make it all suddenly fall into place? 🙄

Good to know.

No need for actual teachers and schools then.

I refuse to talk to a doctors receptionist about anything medical. It is not a legal requirement and cannot be in enforced. Some of them think they are medically trained, they irritate the life out of me...But may have something to do with me being an advanced nurse practitioner..Still, l don't like the way some of them speak to patients, it isn't nice and there's no need for it.

My surgery has had a wholesale change of receptionists in the last few years and they are actual human beings who don't assume you are a pain in the arse before you become one. I used to be a hospital receptionist in a very busy outpatients dept. and I know how difficult some patients can be.

As a receptionist your loyalties, as it were are torn between patients and clinicians. You need good support from your managers and clinicians to do your best, just as they rely on you to do their jobs.

The minute you forget what it feels like to be a patient you shouldn't be doing the job, but many in the NHS are institutionalised and some are just not nice.

It's disgusting. They ignore Patchs (at least 3 cases I know of-all people who work in tech in case anyone blames the victims for not knowing what they're doing) and don't answer the phones, so you have to go in.
It worked much better when you just booked an appointment and only talked about what was wrong when you and the doctor were in a private room together. It's funny how everyone I've ever talked to, regardless of age/backgroun etc much preferred the system as it was.

It's quite simple "I'd rather not say, it's personal". Anyone who is able to say the above does not need to explain to the receptionist.

YANBU. I've witnessed, and experienced this in my own GP's surgery. I actually said something when I experienced it. There were about half a dozen people in the waiting room and the receptionist was asking me for personal details, through a glass screen,so I had to raise my voice to be heard. I wasn't happy about it and asked if there was somewhere more private that we could do this. She wasn't very happy but she did oblige and asked me to go round to the window at the side of the reception area where there were no patients waiting.

I sat in our Dr’s waiting room and couldn’t help but hear the receptionist repeat the patient’s answers to private details. Then she said in a loud voice, “ And Mrs …… can you detail exactly what is wrong with the bum!” 😳

At this rate why don't they just sack all the doctors and let the receptionists take over. It would save the NHS a bomb.

I don’t want it to go back entirely how it was to be fair. I much prefer the online triage system as often you can get things sorted without even needing to see someone. When I have really needed to, I have been seen promptly. I would get rid of PAs though but that’s another thread!

And for little pay. Doctors are very stingy employers

It us exactly the same in my surgery, all the bloody time. No dignity for the patients really.

I was a doctors receptionist many years ago, never had to triage, thank God! The only time I had to ask what was wrong was when the patient requested an emergency appointment, I would write it down and put it with the patient’s notes. I dislike being triaged by people with little medical knowledge, if it’s something embarrassing I just say that it’s confidential!

My poor DM, who was an intensely private person, was once hideously embarrassed by a receptionist yelling across a busy waiting room, ‘Is it about your waterworks, dear?’ 😱

This happens at my local pharmacy too. One worker thinks it’s ok to speak loudly about the meds someone is collecting. She always repeats everyone’s address too. She’s loud. Strange no filter. All sorts of private info & the entire queue can hear.

😂😂

@BakedPotatoBeansCheeseColeslaw
I've never liked this
Plus the fact that in the old days when everything was on paper
I'd sit there and read the patients who had been in before me notes
Had a very nosey gossipy neighbour go in once after I'd been seen to
Told doctor on my way out to move notes as
she was one of the worse people ever so put the notes out of her prying eyes and reach
Doctor did thankfully
Once heard, at same doctors the receptionist say to a young lady did her mother know she took the pill??
Judgemental and insensitive with a streak smug

Depends on the surgery and where it is, I worked in a village surgery and there was a little room on the side of reception they would take them in if they wanted a private chat or needed to discuss sensitive information. Worked in a city practice and it was policy for receptionists to remain behind the desk in pairs for safety.

Totally agree