Pity GP receptionists

I’D LIKE to stand up for the much-maligned GP receptionists, of which I am one.

In my 35-year working life, in no other business have I experienced the foul abuse we get daily. I have seen colleagues reduced to tears by patients.

The worst age group are the 40 to 70-year-olds. They are bullies and I often wonder how they would react if they found one of their family had been subject to such abuse.

We have to remain polite, but if a receptionist might appear short, remember they have probably taken 30 calls from rude patients sounding off because of the appointment booking system.

We don’t choose what kind of appointment a patient gets. We have a certain number of emergency, on-the-day slots and we fill them on a firstcome, first-served basis.

We can’t refuse an appointment and I have had to make a booking for patients with a blister or a cold even though a trip to the pharmacist for an over-the-counter remedy would sort it. Unfortunately, when a patient comes on the line with a serious complaint, all the appointments have already been taken.

Contrary to popular belief, GP receptionists don’t sit around chatting or planning our next holiday!

I work a six-hour shift with a 20-minute break and 30 seconds between each call.

Patients invariably don’t select the correct option when they ring, thereby increasing the number of patients in the phone queue.

I once spent ten minutes having to listen to a patient complaining about hanging on the phone for 30 minutes waiting for it to be answered.

There are also patients with phone appointments who, despite the GP ringing a few times, don’t bother to answer. And ones who don’t attend face-to-face appointments.

There is a national shortage of GPs and an ever-expanding population. It would be impossible for any surgery to take care of thousands of patients a week, even if they were open seven days.

Name and address supplied.