Should a gp receptionist ask you your personal business
The word 'easy' isn't in what you quoted.
People don't trust the receptionist's to be professional enough to do their job, or handle anyone's data. Or be an interface between doctors and patients. Fine.
But that's what they do. They are administration.
Absolutely nobody here is saying working as receptionist (in any field) is an easy job. Not one. I've family who work in health care and an extended family member who worked as a GP receptionist for several years before moving to care work. Not a single person is saying the staff in any way deserve to be abused or should take abuse in any way. That has nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is how much information a receptionist should get vs how much information people should be willing to say to a member of staff who does not have medical training and does not have a registering body.
I would agree they must have a basic triage system as agreed with their employing doctors. New onset chest pain of a nature never felt before, especially in over 30s would be an indication to direct patient to A&E, coughing some blood with a bit of fever but without shortness of breath would be indicative of the need for urgent consultation (by phone if needed) within next several hours by doctor. A breast lump, though not ideally, could wait a day or two, a consultation for arthritis referral could usually wait a week or two. Receptionists would have been given a certain basic amount of training in triage, and some would get pretty good at this.
At the surgery I attend they do not answer any calls, all go to voicemail. They later phone you back to offer an appointment . However they way prefer you to request an appointment by email, which I always do.
I state whether the appointment is urgent or not, eg if I am coughing up blood (have had pneumonia a few times) I would state that and maybe get a same day or next morning appointment, but more likely a doctor would phone me later and forward prescription to chemist for an antibiotic and follow up on how I am next day or two, which has worked out well.
If I ever have serious breathing difficulty in addition, I attend hospital directly, where they would put me on oxygen, nebulisers & a couple of days IV antibiotics.
If it is something more routine, like looking for an appointment with a view to a possible consultant referral to see about an increasingly bothersome but non urgent issue, then I specify any appointment within the next week, and preferred doctor.
The receptionists are not great where I attend, but using email I don’t usually have to talk to them much. 🙂
I could care less who said what or when.
The point is only if you don't want the receptionist managing/triaging the waitlist supported by the medical staff, or knowing your details, looking at your files. What are are the alternative suggestions. Nothing "viable" has been suggested. Lie, do it first come first served, use medical staff. These are nonsense impractical suggestions, as was already explained.
The systems that exist aren't ideal but it has come into place (in surgeries where they do this) due to lack of resources and/or people being obnoxious. A few of our local GPs do not answer the phone directly, you have a leave a message. Because the staff were being abused so often on the phone or the desk. I know people who work in GPs and the stories you hear are horrendous.
The impatience and lack of empathy on this thread for people working in difficult situations, is pretty eye opening. No wonder they have such problems retaining staff and its a service in crisis.
Ah, I should have looked at who I was quoting. I would explain how that's not what the post said, nor what the other poster was saying, but you already know it.
First part - wouldn’t be an issue for me, I don’t think in the first place the receptionist isn’t entitled to know why I need an appointment.
Second part - that’s all I did, I don’t make big dramas out of nothing.
None of this stuff is complicated.
Get your appointment and take or leave it.
As for your last part, all you had to do in that situation is say no.
It's not complicated.
You're contradicting yourself now.
There is no point asking anything. Because as people have said they are willing to say anything to jump the queue.
They they wonder why they aren't believed and are stonewalled.
The problem with that idea is that in reality there are people who imagine every time they need to see a doctor, it’s urgent, and they want to be seen asap, without an appointment. They aren’t interested in first come, first served, which would be impractical anyway with regards to scheduling appointments.
It might be relevant for walk-ins, and even then I’m not sure because I’ve been in situations where once at least I’ve had someone ask to go ahead of me. They obviously thought their need to see the doctor was more urgent than mine. Kinda understandable if I look at it from their perspective, but it’s not like I needed to know they had stomach ulcers, the constant belching and farting beside me were a giveaway that something wasn’t right.
Or receptionists could schedule appointments on a first come, first served basis after asking if it's urgent, rather than expecting a list of symptoms.
Well everyone should lie with the same lie then. Otherwise they'll sit at the bottom of the list forever.
She, hence I said lump in my breast.
And for the last time I'd lie to avoid discussing private information with a receptionist.
The poster you quoted also never said her GP allowed her to skip to the top of the queue.
They give me an appointment based on what they have and what suits me. The one or two times I've had a more urgent reason for going, they squeeze me in. Once, I wasn't sure if it was something that needed to be seen urgently, so the doctor gave me a two minute phone call... and told me to come straight in.
No where did the poster claim that. Why do you blatantly misrepresent posts?
The wait-list has order. Especially for finite resources.
Ahh hardly 😁 Receptionists are hardly likely to ask questions when they’re familiar with the patient’s medical history anyway, I’d assume they’re familiar with my medical history anyway, just that they’re absolutely uninterested in it, like the many hundreds of other patients they have on their books.
It’s the idea though that they’re not supposed to inquire about a patients supposed urgency when they’re being asked to make an appointment is what I find perplexing, receptionists aren’t employed by the patient, and it’s absolutely not the patients who get to decide how they should do their job.
At the same time, I get that people have boundaries and want their privacy respected and they’re perfectly entitled to refuse to disclose information which the receptionist sees as relevant. It’s just more difficult for the receptionist to make an appointment for them in those circumstances, but as long as they remain professional about it, there shouldn’t be an issue.
If your GP allows you to skip to the top of the queue for no reason why doesn't every other person do it.
As one poster already said he'd lie to queue skip even if it wasn't urgent.
Tbh, I have literally no clue what you are even on about, or what point you're trying to make, and I'm not really bothered either.
By the sounds of it, I must be in the only major GP service in the country that doesn't have receptionists ask too many questions. I personally wouldn't mind if they did ask questions because they've handled containers of every sort of bodily fluid samples more often than my GP. I figure at this point, they have the right to know why... but they don't ask. They give me an appointment based on what they have and what suits me. The one or two times I've had a more urgent reason for going, they squeeze me in. Once, I wasn't sure if it was something that needed to be seen urgently, so the doctor gave me a two minute phone call... and told me to come straight in. Receptionists still had no idea why I was there.
Ye are making it out to be a much bigger issue to not disclose private information than it needs to be. In the OP's case, I think she may have given more information to those receptionists than I have in 30 or so years.
Well so far only the criteria. Isn’t that what you’re doing too? It’s hardly going for a gotcha in that case, is it? Might be a gotcha if I tried to use something you said earlier against you, but engaging in exactly the same behaviour as you’re doing is hardly the stuff of a gotcha.
I’m not so petty as to bother my arse to stoop to that sort of nonsense either tbh.
So in other words, you're making it up as you go along. Gotcha.
Not to be contrary, but to make a point - whatever criteria either I or @[Deleted User] suggest are relevant, are just our own ideal criteria. They have no bearing on reality where it’s not up to the patient to determine what criteria are relevant, it’s up to the person who is scheduling appointments on behalf of their employer in accordance with their employers criteria.
My GP receptionist is a bitter woman.Every call in is a battle to get any appointment made.Your bedside manner definitively needs work.
Making stuff up so to be contrary.
Given we were both pulling criteria out of thin air, it seemed as arbitrary as anything else so I just went with it. First thing that came to mind is all.
The most demanding and wealthy should get even higher priority.
Again, that's all in your head. Do you need a lie down?
Why should a woman be prioritised? That's incredibly condescending and borderline creepy.
Lol.
You missed that all Drs should be on the phone triaging the wait-list. The most demanding and wealthy should get even higher priority.
Unlimited resources and staffing.
Within the context in which I posted it, it’s self-explanatory -
You made the point earlier about at what point you determined there was enough information to schedule an appointment in accordance with the person’s wishes, and you gave your criteria. My criteria are even less demanding than yours - the patients a woman? The four receptionists should clear all six GPs schedules and see that she is seen to immediately.
Ideally speaking, of course.
@[Deleted User] has her criteria by which she argues patients should ideally be prioritised, mine are even less demanding. Both of course are only ideally speaking which suit ourselves.
the patients a woman? The four receptionists should clear all six GPs schedules and see that she is seen to immediately.
What the actual fcuk do you mean by that?
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