to really have it in for GP's surgeries...

[mersmam]

Had an appointment with my community midwife today (I'm 30 weeks pregnant and haven't seen her since I was 16 weeks, which was when she made the appointment.)
Got to the drs surgery to find it locked and a notice up saying that the surgery is closed this afternoon for staff training! As far as I'm aware there has been no attempt to contact me about this! I rang the midwife's office straight away but could only leave a message and have so far had no response.
Am really annoyed as have arranged my whole day around the appointment (and DH had arranged to work from home so he could come too).
Generally I am just sick of the whole GP system - I can never get an appointment at a convenient time - when I do I always have to wait at least half an hour (no joke with three DCs under 5) and the staff on reception are rude.
I asked for a home visit once as I was ill along with all the DCs and you'd think I'd asked for the moon...

The thing with the midwife today feels like the final straw...

Should I change surgeries to somewhere further away (which would be less convenient?) or are they all like this?

If you think your child is ill enough to be seen immediatly don't dilly-dally around your GP surgery take them to A&E. A&E doctors get cross if they see a man who has had stomach pain for 2 weeks and hasn't bothered to go to his GP, they don't get cross over people who bring they children in genuinely worried.

arcticwinds and fivecandles - your GPs receptionist knows it could be life or death! Arcticwind - how do you think she felt when she saw the ambulance? I know how I would feel - like I wanted to crawl away and nver come back to work!

As Libras said - if your child is that sick you should be at A&E.

The organisation I work in certainly learns from it's mistakes - which is why you should ALWAYS raise your concerns. We cannot fix what we don't know is broken! Equally though all patients need to appreciate that they aren't perfect either and mutual miscommunication is to everybodys disadvantage.

Northern you are automatically defending the GP's receptionists and assuming that patients don't appreciate that they aren't perfect. Now I absolutely accept that GPs receptionists and systems for makign appointments are not all bad but it is wrong and patronising to dismiss the experiences that people have had or to assume that these experiences are somehow their fault. Honestly, I have been in tears on several occasions because of the way that GPs receptionists have handled what should have been very simple e.g. giving back test results or making an appointment. This is nothing to do with my bad communication or me not respecing them or the fact that they have a difficult job to do. I am always polite and respectful in these sorts of circumstances. As for raising your concerns - I once tried to do this after I was refused an appointment for my then 3 year old by the Practice Manager. The complaints procedure involved going to the same Practice Manager! When I've complained about a consultant in a hospital I never got a reply. This is not just my own exceptional experience either. There was research out very recently that said patients' complaints were very often appallingly handled or not handled at all.

There ARE real problems with GPs receptionists. Now maybe not all or even the majority of them. And maybe these are not all the fault of the receptionists themselves but it doesn't help to dismiss them.

Tony Blair said years ago that he would deal with the problem of not being able to prebook appointments (a system introduced so that it seemed as though patients were always offered appointments when they phoned up to meet Govt targets but not to be patient friendly) but this problem hasn't been resolved everywhere.

Likewise I DO appreciate that it is not the fault of the GPs recpeptionsih that I have to spend 30 mins on the phone pressing redial from 9 am when I should be teaching to make an appointment because it is not acceptable to phone at say 8.55 or 10 a.m but this is still an issue that makes dealing with the Recepionists difficult and stressful. Having gone through this it really feels too much to be spoken to in an abrasive manner and have to discuss possibly quite intimate health concerns with people who have no medical training or qualifications and act as though it is entirely unreasonsble of me to even consider making an appt wiht a doctor! This happens every time I have to make an appointment such that I really don't want to do it.

Where have I dimissed concerns? I haven't - they should be addressed - and personally I fully address and resolve any complaints which come my way. I will defend Gp receptionists relentlessly because the majority are doing an excellent job in difficult circumstances.

When you speak to your receptionist after 1/2 hour waiting - has it occurred to you that she has just spent that 1/2 hour on the phone talking to people and they won't all have been as sweet as you. It's astrain and however much you try not to let it affect yo sometimes it does - just don't slag off a profession entirely and completely on the basis of that.

Regarding your three old - what happened because you were refused an appointment? Were you required to attend hospital?

Sorry, Northern, I also work in a profession that involves a great deal of stress, even being subject to abuse by students and parents. This does not entitle me to be rude, abrasive to the people I serve (and who are ultimately paying my wages through their taxes). That's not good enough.

If they are finding being on the phone and dealing with patients too taxing without being rude to each one of them then really they are in the wrong job.

But it's also the system that's at fault. It should not be the case that you can only phone your surgery at 9 a.m and that if you phone at five minute to 9 you are barked at and told to phone back without apology. Which means that it takes up to 30 minutes to make a simple appointment during which you can't do anything else like look after your children, go to work, teach a lesson. It's insane. It's beyond me why I can't book an appt online for example. Or at least, by phone, at another time of day.

My 3 year old was refused an appt despite being quite ill because she had a rash. It could have been chickenpox (it wasn't) but as I pointed out it could also have been meningitis or any number of other childhood illnesses. The point was a receptionist could not diagnose it over the phone. In the event I phoned up again 2 days later and made an appointment without any hassle and the GP was able to see and treat my dc. But this is just one of many difficulties I've had in seeing a GP.

Once, I made an appt with a GP only to discover it wasn't actually with a GP but with a HV and the appt. wasn't actually at the time I was told - this was just the time of the HV clinic which entailed a 45 minute wait with a very poorly child. Of course, once she was seen by the HV she was then referred on to the GP so it was a massive waste of everyone's time but also incredibly disrespectful not to inform me that the receptionist had made the judgement not to give me an appt with a Gp.

And the fact that the Receptionists frequently stand there chatting, don't even made eye contact with patients who are queuing etc.

In fact, it's never ever easy to make an appt.

Can I also say that I've noticed an incredile ability amongst many Recepitonishs to switch register and attitude when talking to a GP for example. So it's quite possible that the GPs never realize what it's actually like trying to do a simple thing like make an appointnment and only ever see the receptionist being smily and polite when actualyl they're being incredibly rude to patients.

Why also do I have to justify why I want to see a GP at my practice? More than once I have explained that I don't want to discuss my symptoms publicly or by telephone with anyone other than the doctor (hence the appointment) only to be told that I couldn't make an appt unless I did.

This does not fill me with confidence www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2610028.ece

In fact, it completely tallies with my experience. I've still never received a response to my complaint about a consultant I saw several years ago despite phoning up several times.

In the event making a complaint often fuels mistrust and feelings of having been let down by the NHS rather than solving them.

fivecandles i think it would be easier to leave it. It is obviously all our fault. Everything i have put on this thread has been either ignored or my fault.

the whole thing with all the pregnant women having to stand for hours - no-one has said that that was a bad thing to happen at all which must mean that it was OK and perfectly fine.

the fact that I have twice turned up for appointments and been told they have been cancelled and turned away - and not even a sorry. not a grovelling apology, just your appointment has been cancelled, didn;t anyone tell you, sorry about that. Not just "go home" and turn back to chat to someone.

the thing which I haven't said but you have touched on - the way two of the women at the hosp don't even look at you, they just hold their hand out for the letter. They just will not make eye contact.

It all really upsets me and I just don't understand it, but like NL says they must have their reasons and we are just complaining over nothing. I know that i feel very nervous when I have to go to the GP now as frankly I ama bit scared, so i usually only make appointments in person when I can take my DH with me as back-up. Also I once had to pay £9 in calls to get an appointment as the phone kept sending me around in circled and I can't really afford to keep doing that.

This thread has made me so .

In the last few years also I've received several letters addressed to a previous occupant of this house (who hasn't lived here for over 5 years). I opened the first by mistake and discovered it was a hospital appt for this person so I phoned up the secretary and told her that this man no longer lived at our address. I then received another 4 letters over a period of 2 years despite phoning up and writing every single time. This man's confidential information was being sent in error to me and presumably he wasn't getting the appt at his own address. It makes me so angry that this man may not have been receiving treatment he needed not because of the initial error (mistakes are excusable) but because of the failure to put it right (which isn't).

Once also, my dp was refused life insurance. After a huge amount of investigation and stres we discovered that the receptionist had sent the insurance company the records of a patient with the same name but a different person entirely.

The thing is I have relatively little to do with the NHS. My whole family probaly sees the GP less than 3 times in a year. Yet almost every contact I've had has been fraught with difficulty.

Feel the same way tumtum. The fact that people's complaints and feelings aren't taken seriously or it is assumed that we're somehow miscommunicating or a bit stupid or expecting too much makes me feel even more despairing as with you.

The thing is I don't feel this way about anything else including other parts of the NHS like my dentist and his receptionists or A & E staff or opticians or the police or even actually the GPs themselves. GPs receptionsit need to treat their patients with dignity and respect regardless of how stressful their jobs are or what kidn of day they're having. And patients need to feel able to make appts to see their GP easily. Anything esle isn't good enough

"And patients need to feel able to make appts to see their GP easily"

Do you want to be able to make appointments easily or do you want to see your GP easily?
These are 2 different issues. Tbh even if you could logon to the internet and make an aappointment you still wouldn't necessarily see them at a time convinent to you and I think tbh that is most peoples problem when iit comes to seeing the doctor. The receptionist has to be the one who says no.

Five candles - once you told the hospital he didn't live therethey shouldn't have sent any more letters - but the responsibility of providing new address infomation remains with the patient. The NHS is not connected to the electoral role - we only know what you tell us. There are two sides to this.

tumtum - I have been ignoring the pregnant women standing issue but if you like I will give you my opinion. It would have been courteous of the staff to notice the situation and offer extra seats. It was alos possible for all of you pregnant women to approach the desk and ask for one! There are two sides to this.

The issue about receptionists asking your symptoms I have already answered but will do so again - they have a reponsibility to manage their resource - appointments - properly. I'm sure everybody on this thread only phones the GP with they ave an immediate medical need. Well - the general public aren't all like and if the GP receptionists were not responsible about their appointment making none of s would be able to get an appointment when we really needed it! The other reason they ask is of course to make sure that you're not going to die in the 3 hours till your appointment.

I think what concerns me most acutually is the entrenched position some of you are taking up and how disempowered it has made you. Believe me - your GP's receptionist is NOT a dragon just looking for the chance to eat you up! If you go in there thinking that she (or he) is, that you are going to get 'told off', that you will surely be sappointed then I'm afraid you are just setting yourself up for a bad experience. There are two sides to this. Be calm, be reasonable , be pleasant - BE CONFIDENT that you will get a good service and people tend to deliver on your expectations.

"GPs want to work standard working hours the same as anybody else so there will be a limit on the number if appointments at times you regard as 'convenient'"

What aload of boll@cks! Someone who is being paid between 90 - 110 grand a year (or around about figure) should be prepared to work out of the standard working hours. I'm not even talking about working throughout the night, i am talking just a few extra hours that would make lots of difference. If each doctor worked 2 or 3 extra hours in the evening once or twice a week or took it in turns to do a Satuarday, there wouldn't be such a strain for appointments.

As for some of the reception staff well let me tell you ANYONE, whether in the medical proffession or not, who have to deal with public day to day ALL get the same crap thrown at them. It's one of the pitfalls of working directly with the public. I don't work in the medical proffession but i have had to deal with the public and so i have had to deal with rudeness, abuse, being sworn at, being called names etc. So why is it just the reception staff at doctors surgerys that feel they are so hard done by like they are the only ones who ever get crap from the public thrown at them? I also know that for every rude person you deal with, there will be someone who is very polite. No matter how bad your day has been or whether you have been on the phone the last hour speaking to rude people, it's still part of your job to be proffessional and polite. If you cannot deal with biting your tongue and being helpful and polite (even if you feel like punching them) then purhaps you would be better off in a different job role that doesn't involve dealing with the public.

I am fed up of hearing about hard done by gps with their big pay packets and standard hours and hard done by receptionists who don't know how to be proffessional. Most people work longer hours for half the money so deal with it.

MsSparkle how many GPs do you actually know? or does all your information come from the daily mail? I know quite a few, none of them earn anywhere near 90-110K and all of them work outside of the standard working hours.

MsSparkle - a GP's salary level is set by the rarity of their skills and the amount of training they have to undergo, it also reflects the degree of reponsibility they hold. Of course if you would like to take reponsibility for referring patients to hospital, visiting and assessing patients in their home, being the first point of call for many people in mental crisis and deal with fungal infections - then head off to medical school. All GPs work a working week in excess of their core hours - but I don't blame them for not wanting their family life disrupted by the need to sit in clinic till 8pm to suit the perceived needs of patients - some of whom don't bother turning up.

I also don't accept your interpretation of reception staff behaviour. They do not all behave in an unprofessional manner, it is simply wrong and unfair to tar that group as they have been throughout this thread.

Sometimes you don't know that you are ill enough to go straight to a&e.

Just before Christmas i went to see my 58 year mother. She wasn't very well and said she had a pain in her side. Now looking at her i wouldn't have thought: rush her to A&E but i did say to her she should probably see the doctor just to be sure. She phoned up and told the receptionist her symptoms and the receptionist lady wanted to give her an appointment for Tuesday (it was Friday afternoon.) She managed to get an appointment at the end of the day after my mum practically begged her and so i took her there.

The doctor sent her straight down to A&E because he thought she may have pneumonia. We went down to A&E and 24 hours later she was put on a ventilator because of a very rare form of pneumonia and a low blood pressure of 79! She stayed on the ventilator for a week all over Christmas. So it turned out that if she hadn't seen the doctor on that Friday, she would have died from the low blood pressure alone. So just because someone doesn't look seriously ill it doesn't mean they don't warrant seeing a doctor that day.

So basically people don't want the receptionist answering the phone they want a doctor answering the phone? I am not sure how you think that is the receptionists fault MsS. Even a doctor wouldn't have necessarily have caught that over the phone.

Also that appointment that she got at the end of the day might have saved her life but also might have meant that the GP missed her/his childs school play, parents evening etc. At what point are GPs allowed to have lives?

What this all boils down to is everyone wants an appointment immediately whenever they ring up. The concept of waiting nowadays is non-existent.

"but I don't blame them for not wanting their family life disrupted by the need to sit in clinic till 8pm to suit the perceived needs of patients - some of whom don't bother turning up."

Then why on earth did they choose to become a GP in first place!? Anyone who goes into a proffession where they are performing a service to the public (who are, in fact, PAYING them to do this service) be it a doctor, policeman, fireman etc should except that they are there to assist and help the public and having sociable hours of work don't apply?

For some GPs it seems the reasons for going into this proffession is less about patient care, even if it means going out of hours and more about the pay packet and status it provides.

"Also that appointment that she got at the end of the day might have saved her life but also might have meant that the GP missed her/his childs school play, parents evening etc. At what point are GPs allowed to have lives?"

Are you serious!!????

As lovely as it is to be at you childs school play, you honesty think that it's more important than saving someones life! I'm sure if the doctor she saw knew he had saved her life he wouldn't really be too bothered about having missed a school play. I'm sure he would have been far more happy in the knowledge that he had done what he became i GP for; helping sick people get better?

Yup defintely a Daily Mail reader.

'Do you want to be able to make appointments easily or do you want to see your GP easily?'

Both, TBH this shouldn't be too much to ask.

To be fair even the Govt recognizes this and is trying to make an effort to change.

We have had various surveys through. I just hope some action is taken.

At the moment, for example, my surgery is closed each lunch time (when I could conceivably nip down there) and on a Wednesday afternoon and it's not open late enough in the evening or at weekends. I understand that there is a move to improving this nationally.

Sadly, many people don't have the sorts of jobs where they can take time off willy nilly even where they have a pressing health issue.

If DP or I took time off work as teachers it would mean no end of hassle and disruption for many people as well as just ourselves + the additional burden to the taxpayer of providing a cover teacher.

I'm sure the GP would have been happy but you are missing my point and didn't answer my question at what point are GPS allowed to have lives?

What happens if 2,3,4,5 people ring up after you, insist that they are seen that day as well at what point is the GP allowed to say no I've done my bit for the day?

Also, my mother told the reception lady that her symptoms were that felt week, breathless and she had a bad pain in her side. That to me doesn't mean appointment Tuesday, 4 days time! It does seem you need to know that your going to be ill a week in advance.

Northern, I'm sorry, I realize you have to defend your colleagues and your profession but really you shouldn't be defending the indefensible. That's what gets people's backs up about the NHS.

As it happens the person who was being sent the letters was a young schizophrenic which is why I was doubly annoyed that the error wasn't rectified so that the patient got the care he needed. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he had let the hosptial know of his change of address for what it was worth!

But Northern, my GPs has now started trying to run a system whereby you can book appointments on the phone without speaking to a Receptionist. Typically, it rarely works, so you spend time entering in info like your DOB etc only to be told that you cannot make an appt at this time and having to go back to square one whereby you wait on the phone for 30 mins to speak to a receptionish (who is almost invarialbt a dragon. They are rude. Have a go if you don't believe me. It's no good telling me I don't appreciate them or don't know what I'm talking about. They are rudey rude from rudesville).

My point is that this new system were it to work would mean that patients could make an appt. without speaking to a receptionist and discussing their potentially embarrasing symptoms to an unqualified stranger.

Therefore it IS possible.

Also some surgeries don't require this anyway.

You say that it saves time but I don't believe this. It takes ADDIONAL time for the Receptionsiht to discuss symptoms (which they have no training or qualifications or right to decide are worthy of seeing a GP or not).

Most people who speak to the Receptionish then go on to see the GP so what was the point but there are times where patients are told not to see a GP or put off by the whole experience which is potentially dangerous.

Just allowing patients to see their GP without the Spanish inquisition would actually be much more efficient and less dangerous.