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Receptionists making decisions that are medical

Story from nhs.uk

"Receptionists making decisions that are medical"

About: Langstone Way Surgery

This morning (Monday) after waiting half an hour for a telephone answer, and although I pointed out the urgency of my situation, I needed to speak to a doctor after finding out that a drug I was taking had been urgently recalled by the MHRA as they contained cancer giving carcinogins, I was told by a receptionist that I could not have an appointment (by phone) until two days after my call (Wednesday). As I found out about this on the previous Friday night and the surgery and pharmacy who supply my medications were closed until Monday, I phoned 111 and received temporary advice and was told to speak to my surgery on Monday. I did this but the receptionist, who is not a medical practitioner told me I could not speak to a doctor until Wednesday. Given the seriousness of the situation I ended the call and spoke to a very helpful pharmacist who sorted out the problem for me. It is disgraceful that receptionists can make these decisions. Even if the usual appointments are full a 10 minute discussion with a doctor should not depend on a receptionist if the patient is in distress.

I saw this gatekeeper's disgraceful behaviour, when I was in the surgery a couple of weeks ago, when a lady who had just seen a doctor and was on her way out asked the receptionist about the status of her insurance policy which she had been told to ask about if she hadn't heard in 8 weeks. As it was over this time, and she had tried phoning and using the e-booking system which told her to phone the surgery, who in turn told her to e-book an appointment, and this went round and round, and as she was actually in the surgery, her request was perfectly reasonable, but the receptionist said she could not give out that information. Why on earth not? The receptionist was very rude to her. The receptionist should be helpful, not intimidating or making unreasonable decions. Receptionists should not be able to make decisons about the seriousness of someone's request. Surgeries who are so busy should either employ more medical staff, or refer patients elsewhere. Just not good enough Langstone Way Surgery.

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Responses

Response from Langstone Way Surgery 2 years ago
Langstone Way Surgery

Submitted on 24/06/2021 at 19:20
Published on nhs.uk on 26/06/2021 at 09:02

I am sorry to hear of your anxiety in regard to the MHRA alert for your medication. I am glad you were able to resolve this with your local pharmacy. I apologise for the long wait for your call to be answered. Our phone system offers the chance to receive a call back once your call is nearing the front of the queue, so you may wish to use this option in future. There is no funding to hire more staff currently.

There are always a number of patients on a particular medication and so medication alerts do not require same-day action. A structured approach is used to address these with everyone individually at a standard appointment with a doctor to discuss the risks posed and alternatives to consider, so an appointment request via eConsult is needed, which you can submit either via our website or the NHS app. It is not a matter of a receptionist deciding the urgency of the request.

A patient’s definition of an urgent issue does not always coincide with a clinician’s. A clinician decides whether the matter needs to be dealt with the same day or not. EConsults are triaged on this basis. Anything needing an immediate response should be addressed to 111 or the local A&E department. GP surgeries are not an emergency service.

EConsult is the NHS provided solution for surgeries to continue to provide a service in the current crisis, but it has resulted in an uncontrollable volume of work and clinical staff are currently overwhelmed by demand, hence the two day wait. We now only book appointments over the phone for patients genuinely without online access and such patients are being disadvantaged by those who are unwilling to use eConsult, which is the quickest way to access help and obtain a response to your issue.

A dedicated staff member deals with insurance enquiries. Reception staff do not judge the seriousness of a request, but would be correct in directing anyone with such an enquiry to the staff member who deals with these, or advising they submit their request via eConsult. A response that cannot be dealt with by a receptionist does not indicate rudeness, but likely inability to access the information that may be needed to answer it.

Such queries are not part of NHS work, but private work and depend on the firm requesting the information having paid the invoice in regard to it, which does not always happen promptly.

If you still need to speak to a clinician in regard to the issue with your medication, please submit an eConsult request and someone will respond as soon as they are able. If you do not have on-line access, please explain this to a receptionist, who will complete the form on your behalf.

Thank you for taking the trouble to detail your concerns here and I hope that this clarifies the processes you need to follow to resolve your issue and the reasons why this is the case.

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