"Shocking GP receptionist - barrier to care"

I called the GP surgery to ask for a GP to come out to assess my frail, elderly mother who has had severe mid back pain for a couple of days, worsening despite regular self care. She was now vomiting and her appetite was decreased - she is normally well and almost never calls the doctor. We would also as a family never seek to call for support without firstly having exhausted all options.

Advice offered:

1. If she has back pain she will need to go to the hospital: I believe this is utterly shocking and inaccurate advice and it could be one of the main reasons for the restricted flow in our health system - with no assessment  - go to ED! I feel GPs in the practice need to consider, is this the advice that they want receptionists to be offering with no element of triage or assessment? Are they considering values based healthcare? Are they considering patient welfare of sending an elderly patient to ED inappropriately - the length of stay there, the distress and emotional upset?

2. I said she does not need to go to hospital, I am requesting that a GP assess my mother for pain control and to understand if there is anything more that can be done for her comfort. Advised they have no capacity for that today. I asked could she be seen tomorrow or could an appointment be arranged; advised I would need to call tomorrow.

Interestingly they never asked who is your mother - they would have found out she never calls GP's; surely a red flag? Never asked about her symptoms, never in anyway seemed caring or compassionate, felt like they were only operating as a barrier - not their fault - I said thank you and hung up.

We'll keep going with self care, or what's the other alternative is we misuse the out of hours service - sad indictment of our primary care services.