Doctors' receptionists have become a social phenomenon. They
are regarded as one of the "public enemy" professions along with
traffic wardens, bailiffs and taxmen. Every GP's surgery has them and they are
a gauntlet that every patient must run; but for some reason acute care units
never had them at all until very recently. This could be because the job is
comparatively simple. A GP's receptionist is also a secretary, handling medical
records and clinic referrals etc, but reception duty in a hospital is very
different and much easier. Your job involves being nice and sympathetic to
people who arrive, knowing that they might be in physical or emotional pain and
discomfort. You then give them directions to where they need to go within the
hospital. If they have any mobility problems you can call a porter to help
them. Reception in NHS hospitals used to be done by the porters. The job was
the principle task of the senior porter, often along with a basic grade assistant
known as a "desk porter". In the old days he would often wear a white
shirt instead of the general issue light blue. This task would be combined with
dispatch. At some point the decision was made to replace the porters on
reception with civilian receptionists and I know why. It came about at around
the same time as the sentence: "but it doesn't look good" became a
catchphrase. When Mediclean was granted the contract to run the JRH domestics
and porters they immediately started emphasizing their corporate image. The
entrance and main street were redesigned to make them look like a hotel. We
were given new uniforms that looked smarter, which was nice; but as it turned
out this was no compliment. At the same time, Mediclean began removing us from the
view of both visitors and staff. They employed a dispatcher, what they called a
"controller" (The first one was actually a very likeable chap called
John, husband of the contract manageress); and they brought in receptionists
for Monday-to-Friday-nine-to-five. The receptionists were all young, female and
conventionally good-looking. They dressed in smart suits and wore lots of jewellery.
One of them once told me that the manager had informed her that her principle
job was to "sit there and look pretty". The problem is though that a
pretty girl is not necessarily much good at anything else if she is not trained
properly and does not stay long enough to gain experience. In those days nobody
received proper training unless one of the few experts took it upon themselves,
which was basically me and a handful of others. Management across the entire
trust stopped caring about the quality of the service they provided, and in
fact it was their public duty to provide. Instead they spent
their whole time checking that everything "looked good". The wards
were being staffed by total dullards resulting in an unsanitary level of
cleanliness, but it didn't matter so long as the main street parquet was
polished and the receptionist's earrings sparkled.
We had mixed feelings about the civilian receptionists.
Senior porters hated it because they felt they were being insulted by being
shielded from public gaze; and they were right. It turned them into primarily
administrators who spent most of their time in the Mediclean offices. Most of
the lodge boys disliked reception duty and so were generally pleased, although
a few of us enjoyed reception work and so looked forward to lates, nights and
weekend shifts so we could do it. This is not the first time HP's have acted
against their own interest for the sake of short term and limited gain, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/02/delivery-suite.html.
The receptionists themselves were a mixed bunch. Despite their glamour I never
felt serious attraction for any of them. There were two I got to know very
well; one I liked and the other I didn't. I'll call the first one "Lesley".
She was a down-to-earth and friendly girl who liked talking to the porters and socialized
a lot with us off duty. She ended up marrying a porter and they had a baby. The
second one I'll call "Rebecca". She was far more aloof and isolated. She
did not ignore the porters, but the way she dealt with us made me feel
uncomfortable. She was very insincere and twofaced. It was difficult to know
what she really thought about anything because she had an annoying habit of
poking her nose into our personal business and manipulating those involved. If
two porters were having an argument about anything she would immediately wade
in with her 36G's and take the side of one of them. We quickly noticed that
this was not because of some high moral principle; she would back whichever
porter she found the most attractive and considered the higher in status. As a
result she could promote one belief one day and then promote with equal gusto
its antithesis the following day; and she really thought we wouldn't notice? Rebecca
regarded the gossip and office politics of the Facilities department as a real
life soap opera, and of which she was a dedicated commentator. Civilian
receptionists were a product of a particular ethos in the NHS during the 90's
and early 2000's. I think NHS management knew deep down that their institution
was rotting away and they just tried to cover it up with cosmetics, like a
dodgy second-hand car dealer painting over the rust. Of course it didn't work
and eventually this led to a national scandal, see: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-12-21-nhs-hospitals-outsource-cleaning-‘linked-higher-rates-mrsa’.
This media outcry came about ten years too late... We warned them! We bloody
well warned them! Remind you of anything? See: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2014/01/man-falls-to-his-death-at-jr.html.
I long for the day when hospital managers will say: "how good is this
working?" instead of "does it look good?". At the moment that
day is sadly a long way off.
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