Any doctors receptionist here please?

[Higglings]

I was asked really personal questions by the young receptionist when trying to book a doctors appointment.

Are receptionist medically trained?
Do they sign a confidentiality form?

They are not medically trained but they have a list of questions they need to ask so they can be rellayed to the doctor.

They are bound by confidentiality

I am. We have to ask questions triage whether it's urgent or can wait, or if you should be going elsewhere. For example, calling for a gp appointment when you have chest pain, you should be going to A&E. Also we need to know who's best to book with, like whether it's a GP appt or nurse you need.

We don't ask to be nosey, honestly. And we're told what is classed as urgent or can be dealt with routinely, we don't make that decision.

Thanks, I appreciate the need to prioritise but I find it hard enough talking about really personal problems to a gp - even harder to a receptionist.

I understand that. I always say to patients just give me a brief summary, because nobody wants to tell a receptionist something you're embarrassed about when telling the gp is hard enough! You don't need to go into extreme detail, just for example bleeding between periods and that's fine, we can also book you with a female gp if that's what you want based on the issue.

We have to pass an enhanced dbs check, sign confidentiality agreements and have regular training, and everything we do is logged on the systems. So your confidentiality and privacy is respected and safe

You can just say it's gynae problems or it's personal but being vague makes it hard to judge how urgent it is. At the moment we are booking routine appointments a couple of months ahead but we offer on the day appointments where we can if necessary.
We're not medically trained and it's a tough call. Like a PP saud, chest pain would usually be 999. However if it's a cough causing chest pain that would be the practice nurse. So we have to ask questions to try to ascertain how urgent it is.
I live within the practice area and many of my neighbours are patients but it would be a sackable offence to be nosing at their medical records or gossiping about them.

Our drs call them 'qualified care navigators' so apparently yes they are qualified to decide if you deserve an appointment. What the qualification is I'm not sure.

The question regarding qualification was whether they are 'medically qualified' and the answer to this is no, they are not.

The term 'qualified' is wrong when talking about a GP receptionist.. it's not a formal qualification at all, and can be misleading.

A massive part of the job is triaging, with no medical training.
But common sense and experience helps massively with determining urgency and which practitioner to book a patient in with.

I work in a gp practice. All staff sign a confidentiality contract

They are not medically trained but they are trained care navigators and need to ask questions to direct you to the correct clinician.

They always try and book me in testy the nurse practitioner when it's not appropriate. I always ask now who it's booked with and if they say nurse I tell them I want the GP and they change it.