you forgot the ‘im a receptionist, tell me your ailment or else’ picture xD
I’ve worked behind the scenes at a Drs surgery and seen the 8am switching on of the phones first hand, it’s a fucking hellscape. The staff take instructions from the Drs as they sit sipping tea and joking amongst themselves on who they consider a pain in the ass and to fob off.
Some calls they put on hold to speak to the doctor to ask what to do (one example I remember was a screaming young mother of a baby), and the Dr will be pissed off that you dared to bother them.
If you were in a good mood at 7:50am as a receptionist, by 8:15 you will be wishing you died in your sleep most mornings.
The only job I have ever resigned from.
This needs a gandalf, “you shall not pass”.
I go down there at 8am to beard the lion in its den.
I hadn’t tried to book an appointment in years. Just recently I wanted to make an appointment. 3 separate phone calls on different days. 1: you can’t book one today, call Wednesday. 2: I call Wednesday. No you can’t book one today, call Friday at 8:00am.
3: I call Friday at 8:am. “Has it got any worse?”. Me “No”. “Oh good, call again in a week.”
When did this madness start happening?
Ours has packed this in, because, you know, its a pointless farce.
Maybe my GP surgery is an anomaly, but I’ve never had this issue.
I fucking *love* it when they ask me the “nature of my ailment”. Ohh…right then, Trunchbull..you wanna dance? Clear me throat, adopt a persona and vocal range somewhere between Bernard Manning & Grandpa Simpson & up the volume a notch…
*Ehh, I tell you what, I’m glad you asked. Well..amongst other things-which we’ll get to- it’s the old knob. Well, me bell-end, to be honest. Started off as an irritating itch but I woke up, me Japseye looks like it’s wearing purple eyeliner & the bloody thing’s swollen right up. When I give it a squeeze it looks like half a pound of fucking pigs kidney from the butchers…plus there’s a definite..I dunno what you’d call it….* ***ooze*** *, I suppose- of some sort. Greenish it is and I don’t want to go into detail but it fucking* **stinks**…*if I had to say though, I’d go with equidistant between nasty groin and infected feet..a sort of ripe and vinegared ham if you will..but not the good kind with the Paxo crumb, like the £shop one that’s farty when you open it. One thing I* ***did*** *notice while I was rummaging around down there was that the worms are back, so you might want to jot this down: patient observed a number of deceased and partially mummified parasitic worms adhering to inner gusset, pls advise. Now…about my ulcerated ringpiece…..*
The trick is not to draw breath or let em get a word in edgewise. Few of them and they stop asking.
I’m phoning my doctors tomorrow for an appointment (got a dodgy mole I need checking) and I’m dreading it. I’m not phoning in the morning though, sod that.
This is why I opt for E-Consultant. Fuck waiting on the phone for ages, only to be either told to try again tomorrow, or be greeted by a moody bitch who disregards your request because it would take 2 seconds of their time.
Got a fitnote for a workplace adjustment, but the Dr accidentally ticked the not fit to work box. Spent 10 minutes trying to explain the error, with the receptionist flat out refusing to believe the Dr could’ve made a mistake. After a while she agreed to pass my message on to the Dr, and literally 1 minute after hanging up the corrected note came through.
Pretty sure they do it for sport at this point
Been on both sides, worked as a GP receptionist now as a doctor in a practice. The patient’s biggest complaint currently is the difficulty in getting an appointment, which causes a strained relationship. The demand for appointments far outweighs the availability.
A factor to consider is that there has been an overall push from the NHS to hire non-GPs and given no extra budget to hire fully qualified GPs.
Furthermore, I have witnessed first hand the abuse reception staff get over the phone for factors completely out of their control. Sometimes reception staff will ask for your presenting complaint in order to triage to the correct staff member.
Anecdotally, I’ve seen qualified GPs struggling to find work due to the above change in hiring practices. I do hope some meaningful change happens in the coming years.
I really empathize with the patients who are finding it hard to get an appointment
I beat them to the punch and got a consultation in at 7:30.
The real question is, what do they do for the rest of the day?
Yours are there at 8am? I’m left wondering how there’s already a delay that early.
I hate people shitting on the NHS but it’s amazing just how this stereotype really does hold up
It’s not the receptionists fault there isn’t availability of appointments; blame management.
And the GP is not your one shop service.
WDYM you fell and broke your ankle, WHY are you calling the GP??? I’m explaining you need to go to A&E but you’re not letting getting the point for 5+ minutes????
My GP surgery prefers booking appointments on their website (no app weirdly) which you can do from 08:00 weekdays. It feels like a good compromise to get people into triage asynchronously, while still having the phone/walk-in option for people who prefer, or need, those methods.
They are super busy but I’ve always been given a same day appointment, albeit I’m usually only asking when I know there’s something wrong and have gone through the self assessment/pharmacy steps.
Add A & E nurses I recently had confirmed on two separate visits. Fewer fucks could not be given.
I called a gp surgery for help with a bad cut on my hand, they were perfectly helpful right up until they realised I’m not registered with them and completely shut it down and told me to go elsewhere.
Nothing like making me want to abuse the staff like being left on hold for 15 minutes while a pre-recorded message repeatedly and condescendingly tells me to “not abuse the staff” only to finally get through and be told to use their shite website instead.
They should work on the border… Access denied!
I think this is an english thing btw.
I’m Scottish and my GP surgery shares a name with a surgery in bedford. In a haze of illness I accidentally rang the one in bedford up and the receptionist was the rudest old woman I’ve ever had the displeasure of speaking to.
I realised my mistake 2 hours later and phoned up my local and the comparison is night and day.
I go online and do an E-consultation and then of it’s bad they book me in a few days time. I’ve never had an issue
I’ve resigned myself to making appointments through the online portal.
“Your request has been received, we’ll get back to you within 3-5 business days”.
At least I can respect the honesty of it.
I cried too hard at this
Tbh , the day we move away from phoning up and move to a mostly econsult system with phone calls available for those with disabilities and / or complex ongoing needs, the better.
The other day I was waiting to see a GP and saw a woman walk out from an appointment and ask what she needed to do about collecting samples for a test?”. The receptionist clearly hadn’t been told so didn’t have anything prepared. They had a quite pleasant sounding back and forth about how much time would be needed to get it all ready which ended with the woman saying “Sorry I’m running out of time is it okay if I just go drop my kids off at school and come back?” which the Receptionist agreed.
Woman walks off.
5 seconds later the Receptionist sighs and just imminently starts slagging this woman off as if somehow her needing to go and come back was somehow the worst thing in the world. Just like. Jesus lady. Hate to think what would happen if someone really inconvenienced you.
I haven’t been able to get an appointment for 8 years. NHS is good in theory. In practice it’s a money pit where Doctors have zero accountability.
Now I’m on the other side of the fence and actually work at a surgery I now emapathize with the surgery and what they have to put up with from some patients. Our surgery has on average 30 – 40 no shows for appointments every week for a start, a lot of people requesting appointments with the GPs really don’t need to see a GP, some, a nurse/assistant or just general advice. We get several, and regular patients, who literally just want to talk to someone, the same with the dispensary, whilst we offer our own delivery service patients will go out of their way to make an unnecessary trip to the surgery, blocking up the car park and narrow street that leads to the surgery and take up valuable staff time.
The GPs would rather see patients all day but the amount of work they have to do outside of the actual consultations isn’t appreciated by most. The amount of patients that flood into the surgery on Mondays/ Fridays and after bank holidays is a bit ridiculous to and doesn’t help matters as well as being totally unnecessary.
You mean 20 minutes sat chilling with a cuppa ignoring all incoming calls.
Good thing the receptionist in my gp is not rude 🙂
33 comments
you forgot the ‘im a receptionist, tell me your ailment or else’ picture xD
I’ve worked behind the scenes at a Drs surgery and seen the 8am switching on of the phones first hand, it’s a fucking hellscape. The staff take instructions from the Drs as they sit sipping tea and joking amongst themselves on who they consider a pain in the ass and to fob off.
Some calls they put on hold to speak to the doctor to ask what to do (one example I remember was a screaming young mother of a baby), and the Dr will be pissed off that you dared to bother them.
If you were in a good mood at 7:50am as a receptionist, by 8:15 you will be wishing you died in your sleep most mornings.
The only job I have ever resigned from.
This needs a gandalf, “you shall not pass”.
I go down there at 8am to beard the lion in its den.
I hadn’t tried to book an appointment in years. Just recently I wanted to make an appointment. 3 separate phone calls on different days. 1: you can’t book one today, call Wednesday. 2: I call Wednesday. No you can’t book one today, call Friday at 8:00am.
3: I call Friday at 8:am. “Has it got any worse?”. Me “No”. “Oh good, call again in a week.”
When did this madness start happening?
Ours has packed this in, because, you know, its a pointless farce.
Maybe my GP surgery is an anomaly, but I’ve never had this issue.
I fucking *love* it when they ask me the “nature of my ailment”. Ohh…right then, Trunchbull..you wanna dance? Clear me throat, adopt a persona and vocal range somewhere between Bernard Manning & Grandpa Simpson & up the volume a notch…
*Ehh, I tell you what, I’m glad you asked. Well..amongst other things-which we’ll get to- it’s the old knob. Well, me bell-end, to be honest. Started off as an irritating itch but I woke up, me Japseye looks like it’s wearing purple eyeliner & the bloody thing’s swollen right up. When I give it a squeeze it looks like half a pound of fucking pigs kidney from the butchers…plus there’s a definite..I dunno what you’d call it….* ***ooze*** *, I suppose- of some sort. Greenish it is and I don’t want to go into detail but it fucking* **stinks**…*if I had to say though, I’d go with equidistant between nasty groin and infected feet..a sort of ripe and vinegared ham if you will..but not the good kind with the Paxo crumb, like the £shop one that’s farty when you open it. One thing I* ***did*** *notice while I was rummaging around down there was that the worms are back, so you might want to jot this down: patient observed a number of deceased and partially mummified parasitic worms adhering to inner gusset, pls advise. Now…about my ulcerated ringpiece…..*
The trick is not to draw breath or let em get a word in edgewise. Few of them and they stop asking.
I’m phoning my doctors tomorrow for an appointment (got a dodgy mole I need checking) and I’m dreading it. I’m not phoning in the morning though, sod that.
This is why I opt for E-Consultant. Fuck waiting on the phone for ages, only to be either told to try again tomorrow, or be greeted by a moody bitch who disregards your request because it would take 2 seconds of their time.
Got a fitnote for a workplace adjustment, but the Dr accidentally ticked the not fit to work box. Spent 10 minutes trying to explain the error, with the receptionist flat out refusing to believe the Dr could’ve made a mistake. After a while she agreed to pass my message on to the Dr, and literally 1 minute after hanging up the corrected note came through.
Pretty sure they do it for sport at this point
Been on both sides, worked as a GP receptionist now as a doctor in a practice. The patient’s biggest complaint currently is the difficulty in getting an appointment, which causes a strained relationship. The demand for appointments far outweighs the availability.
A factor to consider is that there has been an overall push from the NHS to hire non-GPs and given no extra budget to hire fully qualified GPs.
Furthermore, I have witnessed first hand the abuse reception staff get over the phone for factors completely out of their control. Sometimes reception staff will ask for your presenting complaint in order to triage to the correct staff member.
Anecdotally, I’ve seen qualified GPs struggling to find work due to the above change in hiring practices. I do hope some meaningful change happens in the coming years.
I really empathize with the patients who are finding it hard to get an appointment
I beat them to the punch and got a consultation in at 7:30.
The real question is, what do they do for the rest of the day?
Yours are there at 8am? I’m left wondering how there’s already a delay that early.
I hate people shitting on the NHS but it’s amazing just how this stereotype really does hold up
It’s not the receptionists fault there isn’t availability of appointments; blame management.
And the GP is not your one shop service.
WDYM you fell and broke your ankle, WHY are you calling the GP??? I’m explaining you need to go to A&E but you’re not letting getting the point for 5+ minutes????
So nobody’s using the [MyGP*](https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mygp/id1042280626) app? Cuts all this shit out
*ios.
My GP surgery prefers booking appointments on their website (no app weirdly) which you can do from 08:00 weekdays. It feels like a good compromise to get people into triage asynchronously, while still having the phone/walk-in option for people who prefer, or need, those methods.
They are super busy but I’ve always been given a same day appointment, albeit I’m usually only asking when I know there’s something wrong and have gone through the self assessment/pharmacy steps.
Add A & E nurses I recently had confirmed on two separate visits. Fewer fucks could not be given.
I called a gp surgery for help with a bad cut on my hand, they were perfectly helpful right up until they realised I’m not registered with them and completely shut it down and told me to go elsewhere.
Nothing like making me want to abuse the staff like being left on hold for 15 minutes while a pre-recorded message repeatedly and condescendingly tells me to “not abuse the staff” only to finally get through and be told to use their shite website instead.
They should work on the border… Access denied!
I think this is an english thing btw.
I’m Scottish and my GP surgery shares a name with a surgery in bedford. In a haze of illness I accidentally rang the one in bedford up and the receptionist was the rudest old woman I’ve ever had the displeasure of speaking to.
I realised my mistake 2 hours later and phoned up my local and the comparison is night and day.
I go online and do an E-consultation and then of it’s bad they book me in a few days time. I’ve never had an issue
I’ve resigned myself to making appointments through the online portal.
“Your request has been received, we’ll get back to you within 3-5 business days”.
At least I can respect the honesty of it.
I cried too hard at this
Tbh , the day we move away from phoning up and move to a mostly econsult system with phone calls available for those with disabilities and / or complex ongoing needs, the better.
The other day I was waiting to see a GP and saw a woman walk out from an appointment and ask what she needed to do about collecting samples for a test?”. The receptionist clearly hadn’t been told so didn’t have anything prepared. They had a quite pleasant sounding back and forth about how much time would be needed to get it all ready which ended with the woman saying “Sorry I’m running out of time is it okay if I just go drop my kids off at school and come back?” which the Receptionist agreed.
Woman walks off.
5 seconds later the Receptionist sighs and just imminently starts slagging this woman off as if somehow her needing to go and come back was somehow the worst thing in the world. Just like. Jesus lady. Hate to think what would happen if someone really inconvenienced you.
I haven’t been able to get an appointment for 8 years. NHS is good in theory. In practice it’s a money pit where Doctors have zero accountability.
Now I’m on the other side of the fence and actually work at a surgery I now emapathize with the surgery and what they have to put up with from some patients. Our surgery has on average 30 – 40 no shows for appointments every week for a start, a lot of people requesting appointments with the GPs really don’t need to see a GP, some, a nurse/assistant or just general advice. We get several, and regular patients, who literally just want to talk to someone, the same with the dispensary, whilst we offer our own delivery service patients will go out of their way to make an unnecessary trip to the surgery, blocking up the car park and narrow street that leads to the surgery and take up valuable staff time.
The GPs would rather see patients all day but the amount of work they have to do outside of the actual consultations isn’t appreciated by most. The amount of patients that flood into the surgery on Mondays/ Fridays and after bank holidays is a bit ridiculous to and doesn’t help matters as well as being totally unnecessary.
You mean 20 minutes sat chilling with a cuppa ignoring all incoming calls.
Good thing the receptionist in my gp is not rude 🙂
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