It seems that being on the receiving end of patient abuse is part and parcel of running a GP service - private GP is no different to NHS GP in this regard, and in fact with patients paying there can often be an added sense of entitlement.
We recently heard of a story at a private GP practice, where a patient arrived for their appointment slot 25 minutes late. The 30 minute appointment window had all but expired, and the clinician was booked for the remainder of the day. The patient was offered other slots in the day (in the clinician’s lunch break) but refused, and demanded to be seen immediately - failing to acknowledge the implication for other patients and their appointment slots. Their language and demeanour was threatening to administrators, doctors and other patients awaiting their appointment.
An off-duty clinician entered the practice at this point, and offered to solve the issue by seeing the patient themselves - the matter appeared to be resolved, until the patient overheard an administrator (who had been the subject of the patient’s abuse) exclaim from a nearby office “Why are we seeing this patient, they’re a complete a*******?”. The patient’s anger rose to even higher levels; they ultimately refused treatment, and left the practice a 1* review on various review websites.
The practice conducted a significant event analysis to see what could be improved in a similar situation, replied to the patient’s reviews and offered the staff member additional training to deal with complicated interactions.
What more could they have done? Do you have any tips for dealing with tricky patient interactions?
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