practice diary
Practice Business welcomes a different columnist each month to share their experiences and provide their view from the practice manager’s desk
NICOLA HAYWARD is a practice manager in Painswick, Gloucestershire. She has been in this role for 13 years, and has worked in primary care for 29 years. She achieved an MA in Medical Ethics and Law in 2005 and chairs her local practice manager forum in Stroud. She says she is well known locally for her blunt northern attitude and big mouth.
he end of another week and my desk is as cluttered as it was on Monday. Is it just me or do all practice managers have desks like this? In amongst the end-of-month statements, which are yet to be processed, I have our rent review, QOF chasers, a draft for a new mouse mat of read codes to be printed, bills to pay (“the cheque is in the post…”: a statement I proffer regularly), agenda for forthcoming meetings – one of which I chair – and service specifications for influenza, shingles, rotavirus and pre-natal pertussis, which I really ought to read, digest and understand before I pass them on to our nurses. What is going on? Why is it so busy? The phones just don’t stop and we’re sinking under a sea of paperwork. Never mind the trees, it’s complete deforestation!
Practice diary T
I have dealt with more unhappy patients this week than I have for a long time – yes we’re booked up, no I can’t offer any more appointments, yes, I know it’s crazy, but perhaps you’d like to speak to your neighbours who didn’t turn up for their appointments and wasted half an hour of doctor time (actually, I didn’t say that last bit, but I really, really wanted to), and we do offer 15-minute appointments with our doctors so even one ‘DNA’ is a complete pain. Of my very small team of six receptionists, I
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currently have one on a day off, one on holiday and two off sick (one of which is my secretary), so I’ve been covering reception an awful lot this week and also been covering the urgent typing – fortunately I was a medical secretary 100 years ago, so I’m keeping up my typing speed! But, while I’m doing all of that and helping the girls, my desk gathers dust as I find it difficult to get in my office. I do think that covering reception is a good thing from time to time as it does allow me a better insight into what my ladies go through – how many difficult patients there can be, the increasing demand that is unrelenting – and indeed, I did
50 october 2013
Ever wished there were more than 24 hours in the day? Practice manager NICOLA HAYWARD reflects on the week that left her sitting in the receptionist’s desk while her desk continued to pile up with unfinished paperwork
speak to one such irate patient who stated quite categorically, if she could buy potatoes at three o’clock in the morning, then why couldn’t she have her ears syringed at the same time? I didn’t want to inflame matters by saying that our local supermarket didn’t offer that service, but I could have done, and in such a wonderfully sarcastic tone, perfected by years of experience. Surely, it’s not just my practice? Surely, this is replicated across the country? Or maybe I am just going slowly mad and will be forcibly retired to the Practice Managers Home for the Bewildered. And you will understand my rising stress levels, as I raced back in from walking the dogs at 6am this morning in order to get to the surgery for 8am to do yet more cover, when my lovely other half said: “Do you think you should get someone in to help you answer the phone?” Was it wise to ask me that while I had a frying pan in my hand?!
work/life
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