Our GP Receptionists are the first point of contact for our patients. They are highly trained and extremely valuable members of staff here at KMP.
Doreen, one of our Receptionists, will give us a sneak peek behind the scenes of a day in the life of a GP Receptionist.
Starting the day:
At 5:30am I get up to let out the dogs and start getting ready.
I wake my daughter up at 6:30am to get ready for school before I leave for work.
I will do a packed lunch for my husband and daughter and feed the dogs before I set off.
Arriving at work:
I start at 7am so I’m the one who opens the surgery, and set up all the clinical rooms. I then turn my computer on, log in and start dealing with the online queries and processing of prescriptions until the phone lines open at 8am.
8am is an intensely busy time where we answer the calls from our patients, book appointments with the appropriate clinician or signpost patients to appropriate services.
These services can be a Pharmacy, Dentist, Minor Eye Conditions Service, or we may advise to call 999 or attend ED if it’s an emergency.
11am-12:30pm At 11am, I move away from the reception desk and incoming telephone calls. The next hour and a half is dedicated to online enquiries. These can involve a request for a routine appointment, a new patient registration, a prescription request or a general enquiry. We respond to all enquiries. We sometimes have to speak to the clinical team for advice or we can refer the request to them to respond directly.
12:30pm-1pm Our lunches are staggered on a rota and mine is at 12:30 today. I usually go home to let out the dogs again and get a quick bite to eat before coming back to work.
1pm-2:30pm I will go back to the front desk where I will answer the calls, check in patients, deal with queries, deal with tasks from GPs and nurses and much more.
2:30pm-3pm I will process the prescriptions requests; we have hundreds of requests weekly and it is very important to process them all in a timely manner.
3pm is home time today for me today; because we work on a rota basis we take turns in opening and closing the surgery.
What’s the best part of your job and what is the most challenging part of your job?
The best part of my job is getting to help people. It is lovely to see a smiling face and interact with people.
The most challenging part if my job is when people are rude and demanding. We are trying our best to help and only doing our job, but when we get shouted at for something we cannot control I sometimes get frustrated.