General Chat

I know there must be many, many really lovely and helpful doctors recptionists out there but why do I have to have the one from hell !!!!! Hubbie realised this morning that he had only one more sertraline tablet left.I usually check all his medication every week to see that he has enough left but due to a very busy week last week, (daughter and d-in-law at hospital 4 days out of 5) I forgot.
Went to docs this morn and apologised and said I know it was my error but could we please have oh tablets tomorrow please, but no 48hrs notice is required for all prescripts.Explained again what had happened but still the same answer,in a very abrupt way.She made me feel like a naughty school girl!! As he takes these for panic attacks I thought she might have been a bit more helpful.GRRRRRR makes me so angry. moan over for today. (I hope.lol.). :-( :-)

can you not ask to speak to doc and ask them.

I assume he would not have been able to get an appointment for today so he could have got the prescription straight from the doctor?

Is the receptionist the only person in admin or is there a surgery manager?

If the latter I would have a word with him/her.

Cant get to see the doc before the end of the week and there is no surgery manager as far as I know. If we dont get them tomorrow I will phone and try to speak to the doc or will try to get an emergency appointment.It just seems to be a waste of an appointment just to get a repeat presc. Really it was just the attitide of the receptionist that really got my goat.lol.
Thanks for your comments Jean & Ann :-)

don't they have a practice manager? I'm very fortunate - all the receptionists are terriffic as are the doctors

Check out Llloyds chemists online.......unless its a must to be seen by a doctor they offer a great free and also worry free service..

Ann,our doctors are great IF you can get past the receptionist.
Kay, Thank you I will check out Llloyds chemist. :-)

I have just posted on Sue's thread about the great service i received,

I have done battle with doctors receptionists in the past for some reason some of them appear to think that they are " in charge "

They are NOT

At my last surgery the receptionist always used to ask me why did i need to see the doctor? i would reply thats between "me and my doctor" she never liked that but it's a fact that she is a receptionist so her job is administrative she is not trained medical and has no authority by way of deciding if your medical need require you to see the doctor asap or in the near future so the question, Why do i want to see the doctor is irrelevant to her,

I have also had the situation with forgetting to order my repeat prescription and had that same battle with that same receptionist, to which i said yes i did forget but it is a repeat prescription so the system is set up to deal with it and she said but we require 48 hours notice for administrative purposes,

But all it actually takes is for the receptionist to get the doctor to sign the prescription in between appointments All doctors will gladly accommodate when asked assuming you don't make a habit of it,

I simply said to the receptionist OK well can i have an appointment to see the doctor to which she replied (yes you got it) Why do you need to see the doctor :-D
That was the only time i ever told her, ;-) I didn't mince my words :-|

I left the surgery without an appointment but with my prescription

Roy

I would report that receptionist AnnMarie and I would tell her I was doing so and why!!

Roy, I should have taken you with me this morning lol. ;-)

AnnCardiff, That was the basic context of what i said when she asked me Why do you need to see the doctor when i asked for the appointment :-D

Roy

you should have said you thought you were pregnant Roy!!!!

Or given a 'below the belt' reply :-D

We used to have an old battle axe of a receptionist she would want to know
everything ..there was a few times that she forgot that i was there waiting for my appointment and she never once apologised, but then the doctors surgery moved to the bottom of the town
and i believe she retired . We now have some very nice receptionists .
:-D :-D

Our surgery is very good.

They do ask for 48 hrs notice to turn around prescriptions but this is because:

They can have over 100 perscriptions to turn out in a morning. The receptionist told me that Issuing perscriptions is not always straight forward. They have to prepare the scripts for signing, put the ones they cant do through to the DR, Phone patients if for any reason they cant issue the medication. Look up medication to make sure that they are issuing the correct drug. I'm sure there are other things that as a patient we dont know about.
At the same time they have to try and answer the phone within three rings
and sort out the problem for the patient, ie make an appointment, give out results etc.
They have to deal with any problems/queries from the pharmacy
They have to deal with any problems from the Doctor eg looking up notes etc
They have to register any new patients that happen to come in and need to see a Dr urgently.

Could you imaginge the impact of having to stand around outside the Drs room for the oppertunity to ask the Dr if he would sign the script would have on their work. Time which could be spent doing something else. If the patients found out they could do that everyone would do it and no one would get anything done in the surgery including the DR. The receptionists at our surgery do their best to help but they cant wave a magic wand. They must get cross when the same person says "sorry I forgot to put this request in and I need it urgently" every month.

Like wise appointments the receptionist dont ask why you need the appointment. if there is an available appointment they will let you have it. If all the appointments have gone they cant give you one. If you say it is an emergency then you will be seen that day.The only time I've known them to ask briefly what it is about is when you book to see a nurse. They want to make sure they give you an appointment with the right nurse and in the right room.

The receptionists dont make up the rules they just have to stick to them. But there is no need for the receptionist or patient to be rude. On the whole the receptionist at my surgery do a good job.

Jane, I think the receptionist you spoke to vastly overstated her work load? they may well cover those areas you list but that doesn't mean they are running around like head less chickens and as for standing around outside the doctors room for a gap in his appointments in order to get a signature no one is suggesting such a thing, The receptionist knows when their is a gap in the flow of patients (She made the appointments) and she can see when the last patient exited the room and then theirs them new fangled thing such as computers and printers the surgery's also have things called telephones and intercoms systems

I'm Glad to say that their are some very good receptionist

But theirs also nothing quite like blowing your own trumpet


Roy

I think I'm very lucky in having a fantastic GP and the rest of the staff, including receptionists, are never anything but pleasant, helpful and friendly. I was in the waiting room one morning recently, when a young man burst in and demanded, rather abruptly with no please or thankyou, to see a doctor immediately. He was not registered and the receptionist calmly replied that the doctors were very busy with appointed patients at the moment, but if he would like to take a seat, she would speak to one of them between patients to see if he could be seen at the end of the morning. I presume that is what happened, as he was still there when I left later.

There is only one nurse, but the receptionists always ask me why I wish to see her when I make an appointment because it affects the length of appointment. For example, testing BP is quicker than taking out stitches. I can always speak to them in private if I wish.

Edit to add - although there is a 3-days in advance requirement for prescriptions at my surgery, on the 2 occasions I have forgotten, they were very obliging and I was able to collect them at the end of the day. Sorry to hear of your unfortunate experience AnnMarieG and I hope your husband is able to get his medication soon.

Thank you for all your comments.I do appreciate the 48hr rule but I have never done this before and I always think exceptions can be made.
Thank you Wend for you kind words. :-)

The only time when I’ve had a problem with a Receptionist is when the script wasn’t ready despite it having been handed in on time. We had a ‘disagreement’ as OH needed it that day. She insisted that he should have at least one tablet left. No – a blister pack is 28 days, which unless it is February is less than a month!

To her credit, she did go and lie in wait for a GP to be free.

I have never really had to deal with anything medical before. Dad was discharged from hospital on a Tuesday with a bag of pills, no thickener for his drinks and no night bags for his catheter.

In this very strange situation, I was left completely alone apart from the wonderful carers with three strengths of warfarin. He had no medication for two days as the practice was told he was being discharged on the Friday.

By late on Thursday afternoon I was desperate for some support so I telephoned the surgery and explained the situation. All I wanted was ten minutes of somebody's time to talk me through it.

Have you seen the district nurse? Do yu have an appointment with the doctor?I could fit you in sometime in the future.

She had me in tears so I wonder how some other people must be dealt with in times of great stress like that.