Primary Care
We spoke with Medical Report Administrator and Receptionist, Sumayyah Rahman of Half Penny Steps Health Centre. In our interview, Sumayyah discusses why helping patients is what makes her happy, and the one thing she thinks people might not know about general practice life.
Sumayyah: My main role is as a medical report administrator and I'm kind of a teaching administrator as well. So, we're a teaching practice. We take on third year and fifth year medical students. We also take on a lot of work experience. I help out where I can. As a medical reports administrator, any companies like insurance companies, solicitors or universal credit that need medical information, I send over what they need. I'm also a receptionist, so whenever we need cover on reception or it's my turn, I'll also do that. I kind of do a bit of everything!
Sumayyah: If for example I get a report from an insurance company, it's basically sending over any hospital correspondence or medication the patient is on. I allocate a form to the doctor and they fill it out for the patient in their management session. It'll come back to me and I do the admin that goes with it, including invoicing and emailing it over to the company. Then, it’s just basically keeping track and making sure reports go out on time.
Sumayyah: I think it's mainly talking to patients. You meet so many people on a daily basis that come from so many different places. It's just nice to speak to people. I'm quite a social person so I like that interaction. And I think really for me, it's just being able to help people, because a lot of patients obviously come for medical reasons and can be quite scared.
“Being able to reassure patients that they're going to see a GP and will get the help they need just makes me happy that I've been able to help another person.”
And then, it’s the interaction with my colleagues. My colleagues are amazing and seeing them on a day-to-day basis just brightens up my mood.
Sumayyah: I think it's a very cliché one. Everyone that works in the NHS has the same sort of answer. You do get some patients who are rude. I don't think they realise we are frontline staff and can only give out appointments that we have. I think a lot of the time we are underappreciated by patients. Yes, we are the ones booking the appointments and doing the admin behind it. But being a receptionist, we don't just answer calls and book appointments. We've got emails to deal with, reports and any hospital correspondence that comes our way. It doesn't file into patient files automatically. It has to be done by us and we get all sorts of other tasks like following up results. It’s a challenge when patients don't understand that or they say, ‘Oh, you're just a receptionist.’
“There's more to being a receptionist than people know.”
Even before I started I just thought receptionists answered phones and booked appointments. But there's so much more to the job and I think we are very underappreciated.
Sumayyah: Well, in my role as a medical report administrator we are quite a big practice. We've got over 7,000 patients. We are getting these medical reports on a daily basis, anywhere between five to ten reports, daily. So in terms of allocating that, people don't realise that when we say we require a minimum of 20 working days, it's not because we don't want to do the work. It's because we're trying to fit everyone in. And I think in particular, receptionists and admin are undermined in their role. People often don't realise what's going on behind the scenes working in a GP surgery.
Find out how Half Penny Steps Health Centre exceeded hypertension targets in our case study.
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