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"Rude receptionists"

About: Upperthorpe Medical Centre

It's nearly impossible to contact this surgery every time I call I hear the dial tone then it hangs up! When you have a child under one who is unwell and is in need to see a doctor this is unacceptable. When I eventually got through today (24/09/18) after calling more than 80 times a rude receptionist answers the call and immediately tells me there are no appointments. I understand the pressures that surgeries have as I also work at A&E and work under immense pressures constantly. But when you have someone who is in need and your the first point of contact have no empathy and is rude to me it's unethical and goes against anything that the NHS stands by. When I said to the receptionist that she needs to be seen she told me to take her to the walk in centre I replied that she needs to be seen by a doctor and I have already taken her to be seen at the walk in centre on Friday (21/09/18) she replied rudely that there are doctors at the walk in centre. I then asked her to put my daughter on the on-call doctors list which she did. What happened to patient centred care? She didn't suggest any other alternative other than the walk in centre I felt like she was just trying to get rid of me and couldn't be bothered to deal with me. Highly unprofessional I think this surgery needs to re-evaluate who should be answering their calls. However when the on-call doctor contacted me she was so helpful and reassuring and by the end of the call I was happy with her help and she booked me an out of hours appointement. The doctors seem to be great it's just a shame about the phone line and the receptionists.

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Responses

Response from Upperthorpe Medical Centre 5 years ago
Upperthorpe Medical Centre
Submitted on 27/09/2018 at 10:16
Published on nhs.uk at 11:06


Dear Patient

Thank you for your comments.

I am really sorry that your call was handled in this way, hostility towards our patients is totally unacceptable and this will discussed at our staff meeting next week.

You mention ringing the practice 80 times before getting through, this shouldn't happen as we have an automated service which answers the call and puts our callers in a queuing system, we haven't had many complaints about this, so I can only apologise and suggest it was a fault on the day.

As you know, our appointment availability is limited and when we are unable to offer patients an appointment in a timely manner, we suggest they call first thing the next day when appointments are released or give the option of the Walk in Centre or put them on a telephone call list for a GP to call them back.

I am pleased to hear that you were satisfied with the outcome once you had spoken to one of our GPs.

Thank you for your feedback, this is very useful and we will of course take this up with our reception staff.

Practice Manager

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