VENT-Doctors Receptionists

duchy

mightyroyals wrote: »

Because if i cannot get in with my gp you are made to feel like you are wasting their time and then often come out feeling worse than when you went in.

At our surgery you do not see your gp you see who is available and my gp is normally booked up for over a month at a time. so i can only get to see my gp when i have my appointments booked with him or if he can fit me onto the end of his surgery.

Sounds like any normal doctor to me <shrug> If you want to see a particular doctor you may need to wait for an appointment but if you are so ill you need to see a doctor-any doctor -then you take potluck.

I'm not sure why this is such a problem -you get to choose which you do. It won't be any different anywhere else-and especially not at the walk in centre you said you were going to use instead.

So what did the practice manager say when you complained in writing ? Have you had a response to your letter yet ?

Dimey

I think Doctor's receptionists are at the forefront of the "couldn't care less - go away" service all over the UK nowadays. It wears you down trying to stick up for yourself especially if you don't like conflict.

I walk away when people are short with me or rude because it makes me upset. Too sensitive maybe but I like myself as a nice person and don't want to rant & rage or be nasty back to them.

I really don't remember people in any service industry being so aggressive or so unhelpful 20 years ago. Is it lack of training or lack of being taught polite manners when growing up?

Soubrette

Dimey wrote: »

I think Doctor's receptionists are at the forefront of the "couldn't care less - go away" service all over the UK nowadays. It wears you down trying to stick up for yourself especially if you don't like conflict.

I walk away when people are short with me or rude because it makes me upset. Too sensitive maybe but I like myself as a nice person and don't want to rant & rage or be nasty back to them.

I really don't remember people in any service industry being so aggressive or so unhelpful 20 years ago. Is it lack of training or lack of being taught polite manners when growing up?

I can only talk about my stint which was covering maternity leave so when they offered me the full time job I said no thanks

Lots of things people complain about are things that receptionists are required to do - so asking personal questions, it's not nosiness (at least not in my surgery) the GPs want to know. The shortness I would mainly put down to being too busy and sometimes having to be firm with patients. If someone comes in with a repeat prescription and expects it to be proecessed immediately - our receptionists were happy to oblige but if you did constantly then they weren't - partly because the GP gives the receptionist the what for because you are interrupting their appointments or paperwork time. Same with squeezing people into non appointment slots (usually at the end of surgery), it's a bit hard to be cheerful when you know the GP is going to blame you for making their very busy jobs harder and the patient is going to blame you if you can't fit them in.

However that's not to say that all receptionists are short because of pressures of time, being piggy in the middle or because the patient needs to be told that they have expectations of service that are too high. Some people are just sour anyway - whatever job they are doing. Same goes for some patients, most very nice, some very demanding, some just vile.

RosiPossum

I wouldn't want to tell receptionists why I need to see the GP because they don't need to know and they aren't professionally regulated like nurses and doctors.
I understand that some are asked to do so by their GP, but patients are also able to refuse to answer.

A nominal fee wouldn't work. People who have the worst and most chronic health conditions are often on very low incomes. If we had to pay for our healthcare, then taxes should be lowered. This would anger a lot of people though because again it'd be the rich who get the benefit and the poor who have to pay.

I get the idea about charging for A&E etc, but it couldn't work in practice. People would often avoid having to pay and could well suffer a heart attack. A lot of heartburn cases go to A&E thinking it's an MI, but lots of them will actually be life threatening.

There isn't a perfect solution. It would be great to have people to only see the GP when needed, only attend A&E in emergencies, and only call an ambulance when it's something that will need one.

PILES - in response to what you said before, people don't need to be on medication to have MH problems but still may need to see the GP. People who have health anxiety (I hadn't heard of this before today) may be 'costing' the NHS for appointment, but surely that's preferable to A&E attendances?

As a nurse in the NHS, I can see both sides of the argument. There just doesn't seem to be a way to fix it. I guess maybe people who wanted to pay could have private health insurance and claim it off taxes? I don't know.

Soubrette

RosiPossum wrote: »

I wouldn't want to tell receptionists why I need to see the GP because they don't need to know and they aren't professionally regulated like nurses and doctors.
I understand that some are asked to do so by their GP, but patients are also able to refuse to answer.

In my opinion GP shouldn't ask their receptionists to do this kind of thing. Some people will share information that they don't want to share because they are not very forceful. The same with amending prescriptions etc. Receptionists should really only be used as receptionists.

A nominal fee wouldn't work. People who have the worst and most chronic health conditions are often on very low incomes. If we had to pay for our healthcare, then taxes should be lowered. This would anger a lot of people though because again it'd be the rich who get the benefit and the poor who have to pay.

I don't necessarily agree with all you've said. A nominal fee does work in other countries. I agree that people with chronic conditions are often on very low incomes though. I don't believe that taxes need to go down if we accept that paying a nominal fee is not for raising money but for raising standards by focusing people's minds on whether what they have is a necessary GP visit or whether they could visit the free pharmacy or get advice from the NHS website or helpline.

I get the idea about charging for A&E etc, but it couldn't work in practice. People would often avoid having to pay and could well suffer a heart attack. A lot of heartburn cases go to A&E thinking it's an MI, but lots of them will actually be life threatening.

I think this is education though, I'd like to see public health information adverts telling people of symptoms to be concerned about, what can be left and what is minor. Still not perfect as some serious conditions start with minor symptoms but again it's targetting resources.

There isn't a perfect solution. It would be great to have people to only see the GP when needed, only attend A&E in emergencies, and only call an ambulance when it's something that will need one.

I agree (again ) there is no perfect solution, people will be people. There will be some who wouldn't use medical services if you paid them £50 to go and there are others who go to A&E with abrased skin on their heel (that's a blister to you and me). The latter stop services being easily available to those people who do suffer from chronic illnesses or in the case of A&E acute illnesses.

As a nurse in the NHS, I can see both sides of the argument. There just doesn't seem to be a way to fix it. I guess maybe people who wanted to pay could have private health insurance and claim it off taxes? I don't know.

I think that is one solution but the big problem with that imo is that once the rich and influential opt out of a system, no one really cares what happens to those still left in it. If there were no private healthcare at all, you'd bet politicians would do everything they could to ensure they didn't have to wait 2 years for a hip replacement.

We'd better start thinking of ways to fix it. The conservatives want to privatise the NHS and Labour know it's too expensive so want to do the same, before you know it we will have the American system.

sharnad

Soubrette wrote: »

Personally I would charge for A&E too but visits to a pharmacy for advice would be free.

I understand what you say about the slippery slope and it's a very real danger but they do have this system in some European countries and it does seem to work.

As to nominal - I woudn't care if it was £5, just some kind of amount that would make someone consider whether they need to go the GPs or A&E. For most people that might add up to say £15 or £20 a year, for people with chronic conditions it may be more say £50 to £120 a year but they would hopefully have the benefit of seeing the GP they wanted to see, sooner than they're able to see them now. Maybe if less appointments are made, the powers that be could increase the amount of patient/GP time to more than the measly 7 or 8 mins that a GP has now.

I don't claim it's perfect but I think it's better than the current system.

I think that's the stupidest idea I've heard in a while. I'm skiing So I'm feeling ill I'm worried its days before pay day. I now have the added worry of if I can afford to go to the doctors today or do I suffer the pain a few more days till I can afford to be seen.

RosiPossum

sharnad wrote: »

I think that's the stupidest idea I've heard in a while. I'm skiing So I'm feeling ill I'm worried its days before pay day. I now have the added worry of if I can afford to go to the doctors today or do I suffer the pain a few more days till I can afford to be seen.

Why are you skiing if you can't afford a wee contribution and you're ill? :P

sharnad

RosiPossum wrote: »

Why are you skiing if you can't afford a wee contribution and you're ill? :P

Stupid Ipod. Worst thing is I can't remember what the word was suppsed to be.

Valli

poet123 wrote: »

I have a friend who is a Dr's Receptionist and she says that on any given day 50% of appointments are for really trivial things which would have gone away on their own or with an OTT medicine from the Chemist. This means that they turn away those who may really need to see a doctor because there are no spots available.

How does she know this?

Because either she is guessing.

or doctors are divulging confidential information

or she is reading the patient's notes - and I can see no reason why she would need to do that.

I see I'm not the only person to query this.

Maybe her doctors could have a filtering system where she sees the patients then decides if they are 'shamming' or whether they actually need to see a GP, then;)

poet123

Valli wrote: »

How does she know this?

Because either she is guessing.

or doctors are divulging confidential information

or she is reading the patient's notes - and I can see no reason why she would need to do that.

I see I'm not the only person to query this.

Maybe her doctors could have a filtering system where she sees the patients then decides if they are 'shamming' or whether they actually need to see a GP, then;)

Because the doctors often tell the Receptionists to ask "certain" patients what the problem is before they are supposed to give them an appointment. The ones who are in the surgery 3 times a week I would guess. Effectively they are a filter system.

Additionally, you are really naive if you think practice staff do not have access to patient records. I was a Medical Secretary and patient notes are confidential but not to just the doctor.