Why You Should Spare A Thought For GP Receptionists Right Now

Right, let’s talk about it. What’s going on with GP receptionists? When you most need to speak to one (usually at 8am on a weekday, when you desperately want a same day appointment), you are often met with impatience, sometimes outright hostility. And how hard is it to actually get through to a doctor?

Online, there’s no shortage of criticism and little sympathy for surgery front desks (and their majority female staff). The complaints rack up on Twitter and Facebook with some 8.3m results tagged #GPreceptionist on TikTok, too.

The patient frustration is understandable – with a shortage of GPs, a backlog of queries, rising waiting times, and a pandemic that has only upped demand, it has become increasingly difficult to lock in time with your GP.

Chances are you either get stuck in a digital loop on the website or in an endless phone queue to speak to reception. And if you do manage to get through and book a slot, appointments can feel rushed and impersonal.

But the people at the receiving end of our frustrations? Receptionists, who have little control over appointment schedules or any of the services you receive. 

If it’s rude and uncouth to be hostile to wait staff and retail workers, why do GP receptionists feel like fair game? Put yourself in their shoes, they say, and understand that answering your call is only one part of their very busy job.

In March, a GP’s receptionist of 12 years took set the record straight on what her minimum wage job entails with a post on Mumsnet.

“First of all to the ppl who think we just answer phones and ask patients to please take a seat – I wish!! Lol,” she wrote on the thread. 

“I deal with chemists, pharmacists, hospital secretaries, emails, post,100s of clinical letters and test reports, arrange all referrals, do all test requests, type all clinicians letters, new patient files are refilled, files from patients leaving must be found and returned, clinical letters received are scanned, coded and actioned, translators requests, letters to be typed up and patients to be called to arrange reviews, Imms, smears etc, the loaning out of medical equipment.”

She added: “There’s lots more but hopefully you are getting the idea that my job involves far more than answering the odd call.” 

Academics Dr Jenna Ward and Dr Robert McMurray observed GP receptionists over a three-year period for research into emotional labour in the workplace, and found that rudeness is rarely intended to intimidate or belittle patients. 

It’s more likely to be a form of self-protection by these key workers to avoid emotional burnout and exhaustion amid increasingly stretched services.

“We witnessed receptionists being shouted at, threatened and racially abused by patients over the phone and in person,” says Dr McMurray, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland who, along with Dr Ward, co-wrote Understanding the Dragon Behind the Desk.

The average receptionist might see 70 people face to face a day, they estimate, though in some surgeries, it can be as many as 180 patients. That’s a lot of people with differing needs, not to mention those screaming down the phone at them, too.

“What we found was a group of dedicated people working hard to meet the needs of patients according to rules set by others,” Dr McMurray tells HuffPost UK.

“Receptionists are required to constantly switch between complex administrative tasks and deal with complex patient emotions, ranging from joy at the birth of a newborn to the sadness that accompanies death.

“In short, receptionists provide an essential front-of-house service without which general practice could not function. So, why the negative press?” 

Annie*, 24, a GP’s receptionist from Southampton, says that it’s front desk staff who deal with the fallout when patients get resentful over who they can or cannot see and what services they are allowed to access.

“Yesterday I took 250 calls, in the space of 10 hours, that’s how hard we work,” she tells HuffPost UK.

“A lot of people also don’t realise that we have no control whatsoever. Everything we do is dictated by management and the GPs. But they never get shouted at, only we do.

“If we say we have no appointments, it’s because we don’t have any. We don’t hide them from patients, we literally don’t have any, and it’s heartbreaking.”

While Annie is fairly new to her role, receptionist Dianne Newport is a veteran of 27 years in the job – so she knows all too well the loathing of her profession.

“We are doing our very best to help patients in such a hard but enjoyable job.” she tells HuffPost UK. “I do get a lot of abuse but I also get a lot of thank yous and give my time to help to understand patients’ problems as soon as they walk through the doors.”

Those can be physical or mental health issues – or both. Recently, Newport had to deal with someone in the surgery who was feeling suicidal and stayed with the patient until a healthcare professional could attend to her.

“I took her to a room, gave her a hug and listened to her story.c She started to calm down a little so I offered a glass of water. While she was drinking, I asked her about Emmerdale and we talked about other soaps to calm down. She said she felt a lot better and didn’t think she needed to the doctor anymore, but I insisted she did. Then the doctor arrived and helped her out.”

Receptionists deserve compassion, too, advocates argue. But what else needs to change? Dr McMurray says there should be support at all levels.

“GP practices can help by explaining to patients why receptionists have to ask certain questions and how local services work,” he says. “Employers have to support receptionists with training on how to cope with difficult situations in the moment, as well as in the aftermath of interactions that are hurtful or unfair.”

This becomes more urgent amid staffing shortages and as local surgeries, usually owned privately by GP partners, get bought up by bigger chains.

A recent Panorama investigation sent a journalist undercover to work as a receptionist in a surgery owned by the UK’s biggest GP chain, Operose Health. It found that less qualified staff members were being asked to see patients without adequate supervision, though Operose Health insisted it wasn’t short staffed and was acting in patients’ best interests.

We all have our part to play in this, Dr McMurray says, doctors, nurses, receptionists and the public,  but he stresses that GP surgeries will only be empowered to offer the right care if the government allows them to do so. 

“Ultimately, none of the above will matter if we do not adequately fund health and social care,” he tells HuffPost UK.

“Without adequate funding there is no way to address the tensions arising from unmet need. Without proper investment in, and support for, our struggling health professionals it will be impossible to recruit and retain enough people to delivery much needed care.”

So next time you find yourself frustrated on the phone to your GP’s surgery, it might be worth redirecting that anger elsewhere.

* Some surnames have been omitted to offer anonymity.