Shocking abuse faced by staff at surgeries
THE shocking abuse GP surgery receptionists in Swansea Bay are being subjected to has been revealed as calls have been made for people to show more respect to staff.
Swansea Bay University Health Board has explained how there is a “rising tide of frustration amongst patients” when it comes to contacting their GP surgeries. As a result, receptionists, who are the first point of contact, have been forced to deal with all sorts of insults and abusive behaviour while performing their duties.
While demands on primary care services like GP surgeries are extremely high, with the NHS experiencing the most significant pressures it has ever experienced, staff in one Swansea Bay surgery have had to endure being called “Nazis”, threatened with “I know where you live” comments and had objects thrown at them by patients demanding to see a doctor.
Clare Boland, has been practice manager for Fairfield Surgery in Port Talbot for the past 10 years and has also been affected by abusive patients.
Speaking of her experiences, she said: “I have been screamed at by a patient, who also called me a Nazi. It has definitely got worse.
“We’ve had people throw things at our receptionists, use foul language, screaming and shouting, throwing furniture and damaging furniture, screaming in their face, making threats, ‘I know where you live’, that sort of thing. A lot of us feel very stressed and maybe less equipped to deal with this kind of abuse.”
Nicky Cooper, who has worked as a receptionist at the same surgery for 22 years, gave her own account of her role and what it was like dealing with an ever increasing “demanding” public.
She said: “We get sworn at, I think people think we are not doing our best to help them and making the rules up rather than doing what the doctors have asked us to do. We do hear the words, ‘I will be down there to sort you out!’ It’s no way to speak to anyone. You are not going to get what you want by being aggressive and demanding. We are going to do our best for you regardless, we have to. It is difficult because we have to sit there and maintain our composure.
“We are answering the phones as quickly as we can but, with so many calls coming in, their attitude when they do get through means you have to start by trying to calm them down rather than start to deal with the problem they have got and offer the help they need. You have to talk people around and apologise all the time. It all means the calls are taking that much longer.
“More often than not, when they see a doctor, they are nice as pie because they think that we are the ones putting up barriers. You do get some who will just walk in without an appointment and hurl threats and abuse in person. We have had to call the police in the past. We don’t hesitate because you just don’t know what people are capable of anymore.”
She added that the situation was having a negative effect on her and her colleague’s wellbeing.
Ms Cooper said: “You go home drained. Most of us have families to go home to and you have to try to forget the day and start again and go on to deal with your home life.
“The majority of us have been here for a long time and we have the support of one another, which helps get us through, but, to be quite honest, it makes you wonder why you do it. You sometimes wonder why you bother, but if everyone was like that we wouldn’t have a National Health Service, that’s for sure.”
The health board explained how GP surgeries now employed a range of health care professionals, and receptionists’ roles had evolved. They are now also referred to as ‘navigators’ and need to ask questions in order to assess who best to direct the patient to. The receptionist asks questions in order to determine the urgency of a patient’s need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.
Ms Boland said: “We have trained receptionists to do so much more than hand out scripts and answer phones. They are doing a massive amount of work, and they are doing it for not much more than minimum wage, and should be shown some respect.
“I know some people say, ‘I don’t want to discuss my problem with a receptionist’, but receptionists are only asking so they can help the practice team work as efficiently as we can, and see as many people as we can, safely, during the day.
“No-one is suggesting for a minute that they are doctors. But they carry out a vital supporting role to make sure that we can get through the sheer volume of calls each day.
“All of their work is overseen by the GPS and in the vast majority of cases they are very experienced people, they know a lot about medication. Receptionists are the keepers of so much information. They shouldn’t really be called receptionists anymore, it’s not really a suitable job description for all that they do these days.
“They ask questions in order to direct the patient to the most appropriate person for the problem they are having – we now have a range of professionals, such as social prescribers, pharmacists, paramedics and general nurse practitioners, who are often best placed to help.
“If it is something which requires a GP, then it will go onto the GP’S list. But if it’s something such as a prescription query, then that’s something they can answer without having to ask a GP. If it’s a sick note, that’s something they can prepare for the doctor before it goes in front of them. They can signpost a patient, if appropriate, to the minor illness scheme in a pharmacy, again saving the doctor’s time for more pressing cases.”
She asked anyone who felt aggrieved to go through the correct channels rather than resort to aggression and threats or posting on social media.
“Don’t be a keyboard warrior,” Ms Boland said. “Email the practice manager and give us a chance to sort the problem out.”
Swansea Bay University Health Board’s group medical director for primary care, Dr Anjula Mehta, also spoke out against such behaviour.
She said: “We recognise that demand for healthcare services is at an all-time high and understand it can be frustrating when people experience difficulty accessing their GP practices. But this is not a reason to become abusive to our staff.
“We have a zero tolerance to abuse towards practice staff and the health board will support practices in taking necessary action against any person who becomes verbally or physically abusive towards staff.
“There are huge pressures across healthcare currently, please be kind to our staff, they are trying their best to help you.”