Over to Ambush Predator for a terrible example but all too expected example of NHS staff arrogance and entitlement. These NHS staff, who half the time can’t be arsed to provided the medical services that we’ve paid for through our taxes, now want to stop people who are attending GP surgeries from voicing their opinions about how utterly crap the NHS services that are being provided actually are.
If the sort of sign that Ambush Predator is showing over at her site was put up in the waiting area of a car repairers or a plumbers or a bridal wear shop, then the customer or potential customer would be quite entitled to go to another provider who gave better service. Unfortunately the NHS is for most Britons a state monopoly which means that the NHS and its staff can get away with treating their customers like dog shit on their shoes.
I’m livid at the utter arrogance at the sign illustrated by Ambush Predator but I suspect, knowing how awful the NHS truly is, that such signs are not a rare occurrence.
This does seem very annoying and unprofessional. It’s obviously not an official NHS notice but it was allowed to be put up in the surgery. I’m wondering if there was just one garrulous individual present they didn’t know how to deal with? I don’t think though it negates legitimate channels for complaints procedures?
It is indeed extremely unprofessional. However it also sums up the arrogance of NHS staff who believe that they should not hear what may be legitimate complaints about services.
Yes, but complaints about services surely have a more legitimate channel than gossiping in the waiting room?
By all means use official complaint channels (if they are of any use of course) but this notice is aimed at people informally discussing the service quality, or rather lack of it, with other patients. Some of the information being discussed might well be useful for patients to decide whether they want to stay at this particular GP office or not. What this boils down to is NHS staff deciding that they don’t want to hear criticism, whether it’s valid or not, so they attempt to punish those who make criticisms (criticisms which might be justified).
This is not justified it’s unprofessional and a good example of the arrogance of the NHS gatekeepers in this case the receptionists.
And in the meantime there is a horrendous going on in Ukraine, human beings are murdering and violating each other out of pure hatred, and we’re going on about a notice in a doctor’s surgery or a trans person? Perspective?
We can’t do much about Ukraine apart from stand by whilst our government gives them arms. What we can do is engage in localist politics which includes highlighting those incidents that show us just how much our public servants consider the rest of us as ‘scum’. For the record much of the British press and many among the public were consumed by the travails of the sleazy John Major government whilst the Balkans burned and combatants set up concentration camps on European soil again. For the vast majority of people local politics ie the politics of the nation will figure more heavily in people’s minds than stuff that happens oversees.
I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve highlighted the plight of Christians facing Islamic terrorism in places like Nigeria only to see these pieces get less views than a comedy piece or a British politics piece on here. It’s still right to highlight the atrocities overseas but that doesn’t mean we should lose sight of the fact that local national politics is what most people are interested in.
But the service frequently is terrible and some staff don’t give a dam if you get help or not. A while ago I had an operation to remove a skin cancer and having been sent home I found I couldn’t stop the wound bleeding. I went to the emergency service in my town and explained to the reception staff what was happening. They asked me why I couldn’t just go home and deal with it myself. When I refused to leave I was abruptly told I could wait if I insisted on doing so but I shouldn’t expect to be seen anytime soon.
Roy. Sounds par for the course for the NHS. Even in my own family I’ve recently encountered doctors receptionists who refuse to give out routine test results to patients and instead make the patient wait weeks for a nurse or a doctors appointment only to be told ‘it’s OK your not diabetic’, a status that the patient managed to ascertain for themselves using a test strip.
Customer service is truly awful in many parts of the NHS.
Your experience Roy is shared by thousands of thousands of Britons up an ddown the land. We get substandard treatment with worse outcomes than can be obtained from the health systems of other advanced countries, yet we are expected to put up with and shut up about truly appalling services.
My Mum might have lived to see her grandson get older were it not for the NHS’s tick box medicine policy where the cheapest and least effective drugs are tried first.
I believe wholly in a comprehensive healthcare system but the NHS model of providing that healthcare has been an utter and complete disaster.