You’re the receptionist. What would you have done?

Surely it would have been better for you to have gone first to save time. The late person might have been a no show. Not fair for you to be penalised for not being late . Receptionist should have shown a bit of common sense!

Impossible to say without knowing why the first patient was late. May well have been circs entirely beyond her control and that she had phoned ahead,

Were you waiting for 15 minutes whilst the consultant had no patient in the room, or did somebody else come out after 15 minutes, then the patient who was late went in?

Normally a late patient, unless held up by an ambulance taking her, would wait until there was a gap such as a no show. You should not have been penalised.

I would be amazed if she did ring through because normally it takes ages if at all.

Zurely, the receptionist would be acting on the instructions from the consultant or the accepted protocol

If the room was empty until the latecomer arrived, then you should have been allowed to go in first.

It’s difficult.
Did they know she was going to be 15 minutes late?
IMO You should have been seen first.

If they didn’t know how late she’d be and the 5mins stretched to 10, then 15, Thats harder to decide.
I hope your visit had a satisfactory outcome when you were eventually seen.

She should have been made to wait.

It's probably the consultant's preference as he/she would have had the other person's notes up and would have done a recap on what he wanted to discuss. Crikey! I don't think I'd have had a taxi waiting for any NHS appointment....too unpredictable.

Maybe the consultant had already got that patients notes up and couldn’t switch to you? Had they contacted the receptionist to explain that they were running late? We used to have a rule that a patient was allowed to be ten minutes late but after that time the appointment was cancelled. I can understand your annoyance, though, given that you made a point of being early.

Quite often the receptionist gets the blame for just following the instructions of the doctor or consultant….

Plevey08

It's probably the consultant's preference as he/she would have had the other person's notes up and would have done a recap on what he wanted to discuss. Crikey! I don't think I'd have had a taxi waiting for any NHS appointment....too unpredictable.

Wonder if he had a cuppa whilst he was waiting 🙄

I'm not really sure I'd believe that explanation. I've never known a doctor office that would wait for a patient like that. On the chance it is true, then the late patient should wait for a window after you.

I do usually allow for doctors to run late. 30 is pretty normal. Sometimes they do have to squeeze in emergencies.

MT63... That or a wee dram 🤣

Am not sure of the ins and outs of this. But if there was nobody seeing the consultant whilst you waited and the tardy patient hadn’t arrived that strikes me as highly irritating and a waste of the consultant’s time, but if the consultant makes a habit of waiting a certain amount of time for a patient then I suppose that is very much that.
Am quite concerned about the taxi though. I ring for one when coming out of the hospital not whilst waiting for an appointment, that would worry me.

I hope your taxi fare wssnt too large

Mainly yes that you should have been seen but we don't know the circumstances

That it's the consultant who makes the decisions not the receptionist.

That genuine running late does happen, emergencies can happen, I also book the taxi after the visit, the reception team will kindly book it for you and that often taxi firms respond well to this, so you can wander down and wait at the collection point.

Our GPs are never on time, I am just used to it now. Half an hour wait is about average. We have to pay for them, too, not cheap.

According to my dd, medics fill in any no-show patient time with updating their case notes and other admin. They’re not sitting with their feet up on the desk!

Wow, at our surgery it’s common to be left waiting an hour after appointment time as dr running late. Infuriating but regular occurrence.

For those complaining about doctors running late. I am sure you would not complain if they gave you the little extra time if you needed it

It's quite possible that she had something urgent going on.

I never complain about long waits at the GP.
It seems to me that the GPs I like best are never in a hurry.

We tend to arrive early for appointments. At the GP's surgery they're often running late and we have to wait. However, we've often gone in early to see consultants, although there was one notable occasion when he was an hour behind. When we got to see him, he looked very tired and relieved to get to the end of his list!

I was a doctors receptionist/administrator for 8 years and we never waited for a patient, its in the doctors interest to see the next patient waiting , sometimes the doctor has to go through notes etc before the patient arrives and these notes can arrive just before the patient arrives, a situation may have arisen that made the patient late and the doctor was going through the reason,
The receptionist never has the power to hold you for 15 minutes, they would have notified the doctor you were waiting,

You still have receptionists? How quaint! Ours have become Patient Navigators so we can feel really advanced and woke. Or so we can laugh at this term.