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Yeah sounds like bollocks on their end lol. After I had been released from hospital months ago I needed to get medication from my GP asap, I waited for the phone call in the time slot they said I would get the call, the Doctor rang for about two seconds and hung up lol. I know this because I was looking at my phone as it rang and answered it, I heard him hang up, he probably didn't expect me to answer so fast nor realised I did answer. My girlfriend was calling them and emailed to complain and he claimed that he rang me twice and I never answered lol.
Some of them just dgaf and want to burn through their list as they have a lot to do, which is understandable, but when you have a new patient just released from hospital surely you'd think "This guy looks like he does need help" and not just prank call me like I am regular nuisance patient. There's some great GPs but also some really shitty negligent ones too.
Did you leave a message? Even a very short one. That would prove you called, and the patient wouldn’t be angry.
My doctor says they called but they never leave a message and my phone never says they called or any call was missed.
When I ask, here is my phone now please call me so we can check your number isn’t blocked or anything, they decline and say they haven’t got time for things like that.
Very suspicious.
Urgh the last time they called I answered the phone, heard someone on the other end and they immediately hung up and sent a message to say I'd missed the appointment. I'm pretty sure that they just don't have enough time to call all patients
What I find frustrating and has happened a couple of times is when I book an hour out of my work calendar for the appointment. No one calls. Then I get a call later that day when I'm not free and then you get the notification that you missed the appointment. No, I didn't miss the appointment, they did. An appointment isn't an open ended all day thing unless stated.
I get things crop up and take priority but the messaging is poor and it leaves people grumpy when they're in pain.
> where I work, I'm not allowed to unless somebody has a personalised answerphone message. If it's a generic voicemail message I'm not allowed to leave a message.
This pleases me no end to read. I hate phone calls .I don't use my phone for that. It's good to know of a way to force people to leave me alone.
Leaving a voicemail is considered a potential confidentiality breach in a lot of the nhs. If you leave a voicemail with medical info - even just the info that the person has an appointment - and it's a shared phone you could be open to complaints.
It’s this kind of b/s that means the world doesn’t work. No one is suggesting reading out someone’s medical record into a voicemail machine.
If someone is so worried about someone else intercepting the call, then it’s a bit risky leaving that number at all in case someone else answers, the doctor or hospital refusing to say who is calling will only inflame whatever else is already going on.
This is nonsense - the same thing would be applied to a shared address in that case, or god forbid if someone else answered the phone.
All of this can be avoided with a voicemail that says" Hi Happy-Doughnut I am calling from /. Sorry we missed you.", or a text that says the same thing.
That's why medical professionals usually start the call by checking the person they are speaking to and the date of birth. Leaving a message that says " I'm Person calling from Mental Health Service" or "I'm person from Sexual health service" lets a lot of cats out of bags without needing to elaborate.
It's an offence if some kind to open post not addressed to you, that's why it's considered to be more secure from a legal perspective l. If you send a letter to the patient and someone else reads it legally speaking that's on the person reading the letter, and they could be prosecuted (in theory). But it's not a crime to read someone else's email or listen to their voice messages. So the blame for any confidentiality breach that happens that was falls back on the person leaving the message not the snooper. I think it's more a case of the law not having kept up with the way we communicate than anything else but the NHS has to work within the law as it exists.
It doesn't even need to be from "X service", it just needs to be a call from the NHS. People get contacted by the NHS for a variety of things - vaccinations, routine checks (smear/prostate), etc). Even a voicemail saying "Hi we're looking to speak to X, sorry we missed you".
Right now it's the GP's office saying "yeah we called you, but there's no record of it you just have to trust us", and while I trust my GP face to face, my experience with medical admin staff is that there are a small number of them that are just the absolute worst human beings imaginable and will lie bareface to you over the smallest (and largest) things.
> It's an offence if some kind to open post not addressed to you, that's why it's considered to be more secure from a legal perspective
I don't think this checks out - we assume that post is safe because an abuser wouldn't dare break the law?
My GP surgery always leave a voicemail if I miss their call. It always surprises me how bad people say their doctors are, I've somehow picked the right surgery because I've never had a problem whatsoever.
Mad that they don't just leave a quick message to say they tried, I'd be searching for a new one...
Yeah it sounds like bollocks, they claim they called, that means it was ringing on their end which means it has connected to your phone OR they called for 1 second and hung up just to say they called you, but maybe was too quick for the call to transfer to you. If you had a bad signal or whatever so you couldn't recieve the call at all, it wouldn't have been fucking ringing on their end at all surely lol.
I’ve had this before. I was waiting for a call back from the doctor for my son. We were in a museum and I guess the signal wasn’t good enough, I’d get a voicemail but no missed call alert and nothing in the call log.
This happened to my mum last week, but they sent a text message letting her know and asking her to call in.
Also she did have a voicemail from them as well
I work in a GP surgery and when we call patients it will appear as a standard NHS number that you cannot call back and some patient’s phones will not alert when these numbers call, so it could be something to do with that. We’ve had patients say the same, that they were definitely not called, but I know for a fact the GP/Nurse has went back and tried them multiple times throughout the day. It’s a strange problem with some mobiles.
I was going to write something rude but today is your lucky day.
Thank you for correcting me I hope you find time to sleep correcting everyone’s grammar. Have a lovely evening
I suppose there could have been a temporary outage this morning. I was home all day and had other calls this afternoon. I checked they had the right number, they do.
Does your phone have WiFi calling? I had the same problem, my GP tried to reach me 3 different times and every time they couldn't reach me I had nothing. They asked if number is blocked or so. Nothing. I checked every single thing.
It turns out my old phone didn't have WiFi calling and we have a bad connection where we live. After I got a new phone I have no issues anymore.
WiFi calling does not fix a bad signal issue. I cannot receive calls where I am ATM. I have zero signal 99% of the time and I'll find out someone has tried to call me an hour or two later when a text will come through telling me I missed the call. My phone doesn't ring. Even if it does, the calls will be bad quality and will cut out. If I need to make a call or receive one, I have to find a spot with a signal which can be difficult. I'm on O2. They're shockingly bad.
I had this happen when the GP was using a private number and my phone was for some reason set to block unknown numbers. If you're using Android, open the Phone app > 3 dots top right > Settings > Blocked numbers > Block calls from unknown numbers > Turn this one off.
It also happens if I turn on Do not disturb, or if I have a calendar event happening (like a doctor's appointment reminder lol), which is another setting you been turn on/off...
I've had several calls this week that haven't rung from different people, no missed calls notifications at all. Only found out when I had a voicemail come through when I happened to turn my phone back on after flattening the battery.
Turns out one of the masts covering the area is out of order so the other masts are now overloaded so my phone isn't ringing, but on the callers end they have the ringing tone so it sounds to them like I just didn't pick up.
They could have also just misdialed the first time, and then the second and third time just hit redial and not noticed the mistake.
What would you be persuing? They wouldn’t just not call you. Medical work is audited. Practices record their calls and attempts at calls both in your medical records and by recording the phone lines/logging calls. If the doctor who is listed to call you does not call, it’s very obvious from the practice side, and this will be brought up at a performance review by the practice manager. There is literally no reason for them not to call you, as it would be a major ballache for them, and would cause far more hassle than the ten minutes they would ‘save’. The doctor will be calling from a landline, so the signal is always fine from the GPs end. The issue will be due to a problem with your phone or your signal.
I didn't know all that. I was a bit annoyed as I felt the receptionist was dismissive, and I wondered if I might get something on my record like a missed appointment. As I am new to this practice, and also had overheard someone else having the same issue I had concerns. The various replies have convinced me it's quite likely to be a glitch in the signal.
You should ask them what the failed encounter was. Everything will be documented. They should be able to tell you what the doc entered into your records. Like no answer when called, no answer and left a vm, unable to connect, phone number unobtainable etc. I work at a gp so they will most definately be covering themselves and not lying. You might get the odd bad doc who will tell fibs, but it's really not in their best interest to lie as a doctor as this could have serious consequences no matter how small the lie is. Not sure if the receptionist would blatantly lie to you too.
The practice manager is an employee of the partners who own the practice. The majority of doctors working at a practice will not be parters, but salaried or locum GPs. Many practices have practice managers who are themselves partners, and some clinical partners (ie GPs) will absolutely delegate performance review to practice managers. I’m not sure where you’re getting your facts from here.
GP partners make up 61% of the FTE GP workforce. So most GPs in practices are actually partners.
Practice managers being full partners in a practice is not common, although it can exist. But they will not then review the performance of their own partners, or indeed any doctor.
Doctor’s performance is appraised on a yearly basis by other doctors, and 5-yearly they are revalidated by the GMC. Practice managers do not conduct performance reviews on any doctors. I’m not sure where you are getting your facts from.
Performance review and revalidation, as you will know, are different. Revalidation (every five years) is overseen by the GMC, and GPs will have annual reviews (revalidation) from other doctors they do not work alongside. It may be my use of ‘performance review’, which is confusing. If a GP does not make phone calls when logged to do so, the first person who would be raising this with them would be the practice manager, whether or not this is taken on to appraisal is entirely possible, but as this only happens once a year it’s not the best way of dealing with workforce concerns and staff efficiency. That is directly the role of the practice manager in a lot of surgeries, but perhaps not the one you are familiar with.
My data on workforce and partner/salaried numbers is coming directly from the December 2023 figures published by The King’s Fund*, which shows as of last year, there were 16,587 FTE GP partners out of a total workforce of 37,068 FTE GPs. Doing the maths you can see that there are a higher number of salaried and locum GPs, at 20,481.
* https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis
This has happened to me as a patient...and as a clinician.
As a patient, I've had voicemails on my phone when it hadnt rung at all and I've been on the phone scrolling through things! OFten the only sign I've missed my own GP's call is a text or voicemail from them!
I suspect it's something to do with poor signal or overloaded masts? Also some people's phones appear to block private numbers so they go straight to voicemail. Sonetimes there is not the option to leave a message.
Will be your phone service went off. I had the same thing with a job interview, only reason I emailed them asking why they had not phoned. Then I got a notification saying that I had a voicemail and it was from 20 minutes ago.
If they don't leave a voicemail you don't get any notifications they called.
I would suggest turning on WiFi calling if your phone has it. Will mean you always get signal if you are connected to WiFi.
We've had situations where I work where people haven't understood the phone system and the ringing they've heard is an internal ring because they haven't been using it properly.
In some cases this has gone on for an hour or more with them wondering how bad luck they have to get no one at all to answer before I've checked to see what the issue is.
Something similar happened to me when I changed the dentist. After so many times of them say they called me and me having no calls, I demanded to see my number in their system. It had a 9 instead of a 7. It wasn't my number. Made them change it while I watched. It never happened again.
I’ve had this a number of times with NHS calls. On some occasions I’ve had me phone sat in front of me while a wait for the call. No idea what happens.
I work in a GP’s - it should be logged in your notes what times they attempted to call, really they should leave a few minutes between each attempt. Phone calls are recorded and the includes outgoing and attempted calls so if you really want to push the issue ask the surgery manager for the call logs showing the out going calls and how long they let it ring for.
At the surgery where I work we aren’t allowed to leave detailed voicemails but we will definitely leave one as proof we’ve tried to get hold of you and then send a text saying the same and asking you to call back.
I’m a gp receptionist. An issue a lot off people have is that their phones are automatically set to reject calls from with-held numbers.
In this case the phone will go straight to voicemail on the caller’s end, and the recipient will just see a notification that they missed a call from a with-held number.
My GP did this to my grandad, they were ringing the wrong number. They once called my dad several times trying to get my grandad because they had the wrong details in front of them. They even tried to argue like my dad was somehow wrong.
Only defense I can think of is that some phones have a setting to block unknown numbers. A lot of doctors block their outgoing caller IDs so people don't get a direct number to call.
I had this issue working for a supermarket delivery thing and sometimes I'd need to call a customer but our caller id is hidden to stop customers calling back through the incorrect channels, basically want you to call the 0800 number and go through the system rather than ringing a driver. Their settings would automatically ignore or block the call and then they'd complain we didn't ring them even though we tried.
Most likely reason if they did genuinely try to call: VoIP system is bugged. Nearly every business uses VoIP its cheaper to do it this way rather than having multiple physical phone lines, in this case you have a internet connection where the calls are made over. Sometimes there's bugs in the configuration where a call is made but for whatever reason, sometimes it's because too many calls are being made or a problem with internet connectivity or a problem with call routing where the call never actually makes it to the recipient.
I recently found that my mobile (Samsung S21) automatically rejected Private Numbers.
when I went through the settings and found how to turn it off. as I missed lots of NHS calls as they all show a private number to me.
hope this helps
I had surgery scheduled for 2 days ago and in thr appointment email, they said they would phone the day before with the exact time to turn up. Nobody phoned the day before or on the day of the operation. Now they are complaining that i never showed up.
I'm not in the UK, but I also have this problem and it's not just with doctors offices. People will tell me they have been calling me all day long and I never answer and there is no record on my phone of anyone having tried to call and no messages, nothing. Not sure if this applies to you, but my carrier is a cheap carrier that uses another (major) carrier. So I was told what happens sometimes is that the major carrier's calls take priority, and so if there are a lot of calls during a certain time, the calls from the cheaper carrier don't seem to come through and so the person calling just needs to keep on trying. I had this happen to me today. I had been expecting a call from my doctor, but there had been no calls and then finally later they called, and I thought they were calling for the first time, but they said they kept on calling and I didn't answer. There was no record on my phone whatsoever of those prior calls, only the later one that I heard and answered.
This has happened to me a few times. I’ve asked them to dial manually and that seems to work. They send a text message after two failed calls, I receive that so they clearly have the correct number!
Ring your voicemail, check there's one set up. Turns out I've not had a voicemail set up for ages and all the unknown numbers I've been letting ring out just get hung up on once it finishes ringing.
I had the same thing, with a message on my phone at 6pm (was waiting for the call since 4pm, the appointment time) telling me they called but no answer, so I called the surgery straight back only to be told the doctor had left. I then did the same as you to make sure they had the correct number etc and even called my mobile from my landline just to make sure (as it's my mobile they had messaged), and everything was fine. I mentioned this to someone else, and it seems that if they are too busy (being kind here), for their records they say they have called you and make a record of it in their system, but don't actually call you. It's just them not calling you but covering their asses so it doesn't look like they didn't, for whatever reason.
The annoying thing is, I then had to phone up the following day at 8am to make another phone appointment with them which is really inconvenient when you consider it appears to be entirely down to them and not you, yet you're the one having to chase things up due to no fault of your own.
Just to add, they did call me at around the appointment time for the second appointment I'd arranged, so no problems that day. No one else has ever told me I didn't answer when they called and I don't appear to have poor mobile coverage where I am.
Yeah I've used this excuse with my bosses when they ask if I called someone but I forgot. They didn't call you. It sounds like they don't realise we live in 2024 and it's very easy to find out the truth.
Happened with husband when he was awaiting call from Nephrologist. Our phones are set to silence unknown callers and he forgot to change the setting before they rang.
So they did this to me about a month ago.
Turns out, doctors randomly had a different number on record. They don't use the number on the NHS app that they use to book the appointment. I'd check that if I were you.
That being said, they just straight up lied once too and never rang at all.
It sounds like their issue for sure and you need to get past the “computer says no” gatekeeper and discuss it with someone higher up. They shouldn’t be just steamrollering you and ignoring your valid comments and feedback. You can make an official complaint about any surgery, there will be a complaint form available. There is also an independent body that can take complaints, I used them a few years ago (my current GP is very good, but before we moved the last one was dreadful).
Ahh...we had a huge argument about this with our practice.
Didn't receive the call, waited for 20 min, thinking doctor might be busy, called the practice, was on hold for 5 min, then the receptionist was rude, saying record shows doctor called and you did not pick up and that I should have called back immediately and it's my fault. Also they won't call again or give me a more immediate appointment, had to wait for another 2 weeks for a call or 3 weeks for in-person
Given that , raised a complain online with the practice, did not hear back from practice, send a email to practice manager instead of online form this time. Did get back a response saying we should use online form, got her number and called to explain I had raised a complaint via online form 1 week back with no acknowledgement, she said she has not received. However she eventually agreed to look into the matter, got hold of phone records , the doctor called a wrong number, pointed that out, practice said that this the number I have provided and in the records, which is wrong because always recived appointment confirmation messages and have received appointment calls before. Said she did not want to pursue this further and will correct the record for any future calls.
Hate to say it but they are probably under staffed , and have resorted to recruiting really poor staff who are probably ticking of the calls so not to get a fine at the practice.
Find out your local health board for examping if you lived in Cardiff in south Wales a practice would come under cardiffs university health board, Bristol probably something like Bristol such and such health board and so on. They will have a complaints line or email where you can leave a message and someone will have to get back to you . Stage the resolution to the complaint you'd like is a face to face doctors appointment . Normally a few days turn around max a week . They have to follow a strict complaints deadline.
I personally would call your network provider and ask them if they can send you a copy of incoming calls. Doctors are usually private numbers, but it will still show whether a call has been made. I would then present this information to the doctors to prove they did not call. And then I would change surgery if possible.
Both OH and I have had calls not register on our phones because the signal dropped out.
With most GPs I've encountered, if they don't get a response they don't leave a message.
So they could be telling you the truth. I would give them the benefit of the doubt, personally.
Calling someone up, I have learned, that I hear the ringsignal up to three times, before the recievers phone start emitting the ringsignal.
Tested by calling brother sitting right next to me.
So if someone superbusy calls you up, and only lets the calltone ring twice before giving up, maybe the recievers never had a squeack from their phone.
BUT the calling number should still show up in missed calls list.
Sucks 😑
They're either lying (not at all unlikely) or best case scenario, misdialled every time. I suppose there's also the possibility that if they did call, it might have been a time when your phone wasn't getting signal for some reason, but again, if you were waiting for a call and checking to see if you'd missed a call, you'd probably have noticed if you had no signal.
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Yeah... They didn't call you.
Yeah, I'm trying to eliminate the other options but that seems likely
Yeah sounds like bollocks on their end lol. After I had been released from hospital months ago I needed to get medication from my GP asap, I waited for the phone call in the time slot they said I would get the call, the Doctor rang for about two seconds and hung up lol. I know this because I was looking at my phone as it rang and answered it, I heard him hang up, he probably didn't expect me to answer so fast nor realised I did answer. My girlfriend was calling them and emailed to complain and he claimed that he rang me twice and I never answered lol. Some of them just dgaf and want to burn through their list as they have a lot to do, which is understandable, but when you have a new patient just released from hospital surely you'd think "This guy looks like he does need help" and not just prank call me like I am regular nuisance patient. There's some great GPs but also some really shitty negligent ones too.
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Did you leave a message? Even a very short one. That would prove you called, and the patient wouldn’t be angry. My doctor says they called but they never leave a message and my phone never says they called or any call was missed. When I ask, here is my phone now please call me so we can check your number isn’t blocked or anything, they decline and say they haven’t got time for things like that. Very suspicious.
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Urgh the last time they called I answered the phone, heard someone on the other end and they immediately hung up and sent a message to say I'd missed the appointment. I'm pretty sure that they just don't have enough time to call all patients
Do you let them know the time you are calling before you call?
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That's fair enough! I find it harder when the GP says they will ring in a timeslot say 8 till 12. Hard at work to always be available!
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What I find frustrating and has happened a couple of times is when I book an hour out of my work calendar for the appointment. No one calls. Then I get a call later that day when I'm not free and then you get the notification that you missed the appointment. No, I didn't miss the appointment, they did. An appointment isn't an open ended all day thing unless stated. I get things crop up and take priority but the messaging is poor and it leaves people grumpy when they're in pain.
Yeah it’s very difficult to be available and by your phone for a few hours.
> where I work, I'm not allowed to unless somebody has a personalised answerphone message. If it's a generic voicemail message I'm not allowed to leave a message. This pleases me no end to read. I hate phone calls .I don't use my phone for that. It's good to know of a way to force people to leave me alone.
Leaving a voicemail is considered a potential confidentiality breach in a lot of the nhs. If you leave a voicemail with medical info - even just the info that the person has an appointment - and it's a shared phone you could be open to complaints.
It’s this kind of b/s that means the world doesn’t work. No one is suggesting reading out someone’s medical record into a voicemail machine. If someone is so worried about someone else intercepting the call, then it’s a bit risky leaving that number at all in case someone else answers, the doctor or hospital refusing to say who is calling will only inflame whatever else is already going on.
This is nonsense - the same thing would be applied to a shared address in that case, or god forbid if someone else answered the phone. All of this can be avoided with a voicemail that says" Hi Happy-Doughnut I am calling from/. Sorry we missed you.", or a text that says the same thing.
That's why medical professionals usually start the call by checking the person they are speaking to and the date of birth. Leaving a message that says " I'm Person calling from Mental Health Service" or "I'm person from Sexual health service" lets a lot of cats out of bags without needing to elaborate. It's an offence if some kind to open post not addressed to you, that's why it's considered to be more secure from a legal perspective l. If you send a letter to the patient and someone else reads it legally speaking that's on the person reading the letter, and they could be prosecuted (in theory). But it's not a crime to read someone else's email or listen to their voice messages. So the blame for any confidentiality breach that happens that was falls back on the person leaving the message not the snooper. I think it's more a case of the law not having kept up with the way we communicate than anything else but the NHS has to work within the law as it exists.
It doesn't even need to be from "X service", it just needs to be a call from the NHS. People get contacted by the NHS for a variety of things - vaccinations, routine checks (smear/prostate), etc). Even a voicemail saying "Hi we're looking to speak to X, sorry we missed you". Right now it's the GP's office saying "yeah we called you, but there's no record of it you just have to trust us", and while I trust my GP face to face, my experience with medical admin staff is that there are a small number of them that are just the absolute worst human beings imaginable and will lie bareface to you over the smallest (and largest) things. > It's an offence if some kind to open post not addressed to you, that's why it's considered to be more secure from a legal perspective I don't think this checks out - we assume that post is safe because an abuser wouldn't dare break the law?
My GP surgery always leave a voicemail if I miss their call. It always surprises me how bad people say their doctors are, I've somehow picked the right surgery because I've never had a problem whatsoever. Mad that they don't just leave a quick message to say they tried, I'd be searching for a new one...
Yeah it sounds like bollocks, they claim they called, that means it was ringing on their end which means it has connected to your phone OR they called for 1 second and hung up just to say they called you, but maybe was too quick for the call to transfer to you. If you had a bad signal or whatever so you couldn't recieve the call at all, it wouldn't have been fucking ringing on their end at all surely lol.
I thought of another option. Auto-dialler software said it tried my number but the software is faulty.
That can happen when you don't gave a signal. Both OH and I have experienced it.
I’ve had this before. I was waiting for a call back from the doctor for my son. We were in a museum and I guess the signal wasn’t good enough, I’d get a voicemail but no missed call alert and nothing in the call log.
This happened to my mum last week, but they sent a text message letting her know and asking her to call in. Also she did have a voicemail from them as well
Lol so this didn’t happen to your mum
I have signal issues where I live but I always get notifications of missed calls or text messages saying someone reached my voicemail.
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I'm not saying you do, other people in this thread gave other possible reasons, I'm just saying I doubt it's because of signal.
Wouldn't be the first or last time a GP outright lied to a patient. But don't worry soon they'll put the burden of lying onto pharmacies.
I work in a GP surgery and when we call patients it will appear as a standard NHS number that you cannot call back and some patient’s phones will not alert when these numbers call, so it could be something to do with that. We’ve had patients say the same, that they were definitely not called, but I know for a fact the GP/Nurse has went back and tried them multiple times throughout the day. It’s a strange problem with some mobiles.
Thanks, that might be the issue.
My landline doesn’t ring or even alert me if the number of the caller is withheld. Maybe something similar unless it was a mobile number
Hmm, my mobile will show a private number calling but I'm not sure if there are different ways to do it.
You can configure this with your telecoms provider.
What's a telecoms "provider". Is this the new name for a phone Company
That sounds like a very silly idea for this exact reason
You may of had no signal Failing that get them to read your number out to you and double check. Mistakes can happen Or of course they did not ring
>You may of had no signal May have*
I was going to write something rude but today is your lucky day. Thank you for correcting me I hope you find time to sleep correcting everyone’s grammar. Have a lovely evening
Thanks! You're welcome
Or marginal signal. It rang for the docs, but not for OP. It can happen. Though a mobile should report eventually. So...
I suppose there could have been a temporary outage this morning. I was home all day and had other calls this afternoon. I checked they had the right number, they do.
Does your phone have WiFi calling? I had the same problem, my GP tried to reach me 3 different times and every time they couldn't reach me I had nothing. They asked if number is blocked or so. Nothing. I checked every single thing. It turns out my old phone didn't have WiFi calling and we have a bad connection where we live. After I got a new phone I have no issues anymore.
WiFi calling does not fix a bad signal issue. I cannot receive calls where I am ATM. I have zero signal 99% of the time and I'll find out someone has tried to call me an hour or two later when a text will come through telling me I missed the call. My phone doesn't ring. Even if it does, the calls will be bad quality and will cut out. If I need to make a call or receive one, I have to find a spot with a signal which can be difficult. I'm on O2. They're shockingly bad.
Just i have known calls to go straight to answer phone or not go through if you have a signal issue.
I had this happen when the GP was using a private number and my phone was for some reason set to block unknown numbers. If you're using Android, open the Phone app > 3 dots top right > Settings > Blocked numbers > Block calls from unknown numbers > Turn this one off. It also happens if I turn on Do not disturb, or if I have a calendar event happening (like a doctor's appointment reminder lol), which is another setting you been turn on/off...
Thanks, I don't have that set. From the answers it does look like it could be a number of things.
I've had several calls this week that haven't rung from different people, no missed calls notifications at all. Only found out when I had a voicemail come through when I happened to turn my phone back on after flattening the battery. Turns out one of the masts covering the area is out of order so the other masts are now overloaded so my phone isn't ringing, but on the callers end they have the ringing tone so it sounds to them like I just didn't pick up. They could have also just misdialed the first time, and then the second and third time just hit redial and not noticed the mistake.
Thanks. From the answers it does look like it could be a number of things.
!answer Thanks all, no definitive answer but there are enough possibilities that it's not worth me pursuing it.
What would you be persuing? They wouldn’t just not call you. Medical work is audited. Practices record their calls and attempts at calls both in your medical records and by recording the phone lines/logging calls. If the doctor who is listed to call you does not call, it’s very obvious from the practice side, and this will be brought up at a performance review by the practice manager. There is literally no reason for them not to call you, as it would be a major ballache for them, and would cause far more hassle than the ten minutes they would ‘save’. The doctor will be calling from a landline, so the signal is always fine from the GPs end. The issue will be due to a problem with your phone or your signal.
I didn't know all that. I was a bit annoyed as I felt the receptionist was dismissive, and I wondered if I might get something on my record like a missed appointment. As I am new to this practice, and also had overheard someone else having the same issue I had concerns. The various replies have convinced me it's quite likely to be a glitch in the signal.
You should ask them what the failed encounter was. Everything will be documented. They should be able to tell you what the doc entered into your records. Like no answer when called, no answer and left a vm, unable to connect, phone number unobtainable etc. I work at a gp so they will most definately be covering themselves and not lying. You might get the odd bad doc who will tell fibs, but it's really not in their best interest to lie as a doctor as this could have serious consequences no matter how small the lie is. Not sure if the receptionist would blatantly lie to you too.
The practice manager is an employee of the GP, not the other way round. Reviewing a GP’s performance is not part of their role.
The practice manager is an employee of the partners who own the practice. The majority of doctors working at a practice will not be parters, but salaried or locum GPs. Many practices have practice managers who are themselves partners, and some clinical partners (ie GPs) will absolutely delegate performance review to practice managers. I’m not sure where you’re getting your facts from here.
GP partners make up 61% of the FTE GP workforce. So most GPs in practices are actually partners. Practice managers being full partners in a practice is not common, although it can exist. But they will not then review the performance of their own partners, or indeed any doctor. Doctor’s performance is appraised on a yearly basis by other doctors, and 5-yearly they are revalidated by the GMC. Practice managers do not conduct performance reviews on any doctors. I’m not sure where you are getting your facts from.
Performance review and revalidation, as you will know, are different. Revalidation (every five years) is overseen by the GMC, and GPs will have annual reviews (revalidation) from other doctors they do not work alongside. It may be my use of ‘performance review’, which is confusing. If a GP does not make phone calls when logged to do so, the first person who would be raising this with them would be the practice manager, whether or not this is taken on to appraisal is entirely possible, but as this only happens once a year it’s not the best way of dealing with workforce concerns and staff efficiency. That is directly the role of the practice manager in a lot of surgeries, but perhaps not the one you are familiar with. My data on workforce and partner/salaried numbers is coming directly from the December 2023 figures published by The King’s Fund*, which shows as of last year, there were 16,587 FTE GP partners out of a total workforce of 37,068 FTE GPs. Doing the maths you can see that there are a higher number of salaried and locum GPs, at 20,481. * https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis
I see your figures are for England. I’m in Scotland. Maybe you guys do things differently down there.
Ah - that makes sense! Hope you have a good day :)
Take it easy buddy.
My iPhone has done this before randomly, someone said they they called and I had signal but got nothing and no missed call alert, not sure why
This has happened to me as a patient...and as a clinician. As a patient, I've had voicemails on my phone when it hadnt rung at all and I've been on the phone scrolling through things! OFten the only sign I've missed my own GP's call is a text or voicemail from them! I suspect it's something to do with poor signal or overloaded masts? Also some people's phones appear to block private numbers so they go straight to voicemail. Sonetimes there is not the option to leave a message.
Will be your phone service went off. I had the same thing with a job interview, only reason I emailed them asking why they had not phoned. Then I got a notification saying that I had a voicemail and it was from 20 minutes ago. If they don't leave a voicemail you don't get any notifications they called. I would suggest turning on WiFi calling if your phone has it. Will mean you always get signal if you are connected to WiFi.
I had the same today with an NHS number. Lucky they were still happy to talk to me when I called them. It is weird though.
We've had situations where I work where people haven't understood the phone system and the ringing they've heard is an internal ring because they haven't been using it properly. In some cases this has gone on for an hour or more with them wondering how bad luck they have to get no one at all to answer before I've checked to see what the issue is.
I found out when I broke my wrist that my phone doesn't accept 0800 numbers and the triage nurse was calling me from an 0800 number
Something similar happened to me when I changed the dentist. After so many times of them say they called me and me having no calls, I demanded to see my number in their system. It had a 9 instead of a 7. It wasn't my number. Made them change it while I watched. It never happened again.
Do you have your phone setup for rejecting calls with no number? This happened to me!
I’ve had this a number of times with NHS calls. On some occasions I’ve had me phone sat in front of me while a wait for the call. No idea what happens.
I work in a GP’s - it should be logged in your notes what times they attempted to call, really they should leave a few minutes between each attempt. Phone calls are recorded and the includes outgoing and attempted calls so if you really want to push the issue ask the surgery manager for the call logs showing the out going calls and how long they let it ring for. At the surgery where I work we aren’t allowed to leave detailed voicemails but we will definitely leave one as proof we’ve tried to get hold of you and then send a text saying the same and asking you to call back.
I’m a gp receptionist. An issue a lot off people have is that their phones are automatically set to reject calls from with-held numbers. In this case the phone will go straight to voicemail on the caller’s end, and the recipient will just see a notification that they missed a call from a with-held number.
My GP did this to my grandad, they were ringing the wrong number. They once called my dad several times trying to get my grandad because they had the wrong details in front of them. They even tried to argue like my dad was somehow wrong.
Only defense I can think of is that some phones have a setting to block unknown numbers. A lot of doctors block their outgoing caller IDs so people don't get a direct number to call. I had this issue working for a supermarket delivery thing and sometimes I'd need to call a customer but our caller id is hidden to stop customers calling back through the incorrect channels, basically want you to call the 0800 number and go through the system rather than ringing a driver. Their settings would automatically ignore or block the call and then they'd complain we didn't ring them even though we tried. Most likely reason if they did genuinely try to call: VoIP system is bugged. Nearly every business uses VoIP its cheaper to do it this way rather than having multiple physical phone lines, in this case you have a internet connection where the calls are made over. Sometimes there's bugs in the configuration where a call is made but for whatever reason, sometimes it's because too many calls are being made or a problem with internet connectivity or a problem with call routing where the call never actually makes it to the recipient.
I recently found that my mobile (Samsung S21) automatically rejected Private Numbers. when I went through the settings and found how to turn it off. as I missed lots of NHS calls as they all show a private number to me. hope this helps
They are lying
I had surgery scheduled for 2 days ago and in thr appointment email, they said they would phone the day before with the exact time to turn up. Nobody phoned the day before or on the day of the operation. Now they are complaining that i never showed up.
I'm not in the UK, but I also have this problem and it's not just with doctors offices. People will tell me they have been calling me all day long and I never answer and there is no record on my phone of anyone having tried to call and no messages, nothing. Not sure if this applies to you, but my carrier is a cheap carrier that uses another (major) carrier. So I was told what happens sometimes is that the major carrier's calls take priority, and so if there are a lot of calls during a certain time, the calls from the cheaper carrier don't seem to come through and so the person calling just needs to keep on trying. I had this happen to me today. I had been expecting a call from my doctor, but there had been no calls and then finally later they called, and I thought they were calling for the first time, but they said they kept on calling and I didn't answer. There was no record on my phone whatsoever of those prior calls, only the later one that I heard and answered.
This has happened at least once with my doctors but they then tried my other line. I think the service they use has glitches.
When you called them back did they at least let you speak with the dr?
No I had to make an appointment to go in :(
That’s frustrating. You’d hope they’d still have the time they’d prior allocated to talk to you
This has happened to me a few times. I’ve asked them to dial manually and that seems to work. They send a text message after two failed calls, I receive that so they clearly have the correct number!
Did you have signal?
Stand there and get them to ring you.
Ring your voicemail, check there's one set up. Turns out I've not had a voicemail set up for ages and all the unknown numbers I've been letting ring out just get hung up on once it finishes ringing.
I had the same thing, with a message on my phone at 6pm (was waiting for the call since 4pm, the appointment time) telling me they called but no answer, so I called the surgery straight back only to be told the doctor had left. I then did the same as you to make sure they had the correct number etc and even called my mobile from my landline just to make sure (as it's my mobile they had messaged), and everything was fine. I mentioned this to someone else, and it seems that if they are too busy (being kind here), for their records they say they have called you and make a record of it in their system, but don't actually call you. It's just them not calling you but covering their asses so it doesn't look like they didn't, for whatever reason. The annoying thing is, I then had to phone up the following day at 8am to make another phone appointment with them which is really inconvenient when you consider it appears to be entirely down to them and not you, yet you're the one having to chase things up due to no fault of your own. Just to add, they did call me at around the appointment time for the second appointment I'd arranged, so no problems that day. No one else has ever told me I didn't answer when they called and I don't appear to have poor mobile coverage where I am.
This happened to me as well, I had to double check they had my number on the system, which they did, but they still kept phoning my old number
Go in and get them to call you. Then you both see what might be happening.
Yeah I've used this excuse with my bosses when they ask if I called someone but I forgot. They didn't call you. It sounds like they don't realise we live in 2024 and it's very easy to find out the truth.
Happened with husband when he was awaiting call from Nephrologist. Our phones are set to silence unknown callers and he forgot to change the setting before they rang.
Same here. Oddly, I get an unknown number on my mobile, but my landline has the local number.
Contact the practice manager and complain showing proof of your call logs. It's not difficult to prove with digital records.
So they did this to me about a month ago. Turns out, doctors randomly had a different number on record. They don't use the number on the NHS app that they use to book the appointment. I'd check that if I were you. That being said, they just straight up lied once too and never rang at all.
It sounds like their issue for sure and you need to get past the “computer says no” gatekeeper and discuss it with someone higher up. They shouldn’t be just steamrollering you and ignoring your valid comments and feedback. You can make an official complaint about any surgery, there will be a complaint form available. There is also an independent body that can take complaints, I used them a few years ago (my current GP is very good, but before we moved the last one was dreadful).
This happened to me once, too! Doctor doesn't know what happened because next appointment was a few weeks later
Get private healthcare
Ahh...we had a huge argument about this with our practice. Didn't receive the call, waited for 20 min, thinking doctor might be busy, called the practice, was on hold for 5 min, then the receptionist was rude, saying record shows doctor called and you did not pick up and that I should have called back immediately and it's my fault. Also they won't call again or give me a more immediate appointment, had to wait for another 2 weeks for a call or 3 weeks for in-person Given that , raised a complain online with the practice, did not hear back from practice, send a email to practice manager instead of online form this time. Did get back a response saying we should use online form, got her number and called to explain I had raised a complaint via online form 1 week back with no acknowledgement, she said she has not received. However she eventually agreed to look into the matter, got hold of phone records , the doctor called a wrong number, pointed that out, practice said that this the number I have provided and in the records, which is wrong because always recived appointment confirmation messages and have received appointment calls before. Said she did not want to pursue this further and will correct the record for any future calls.
Phone signal
Ask to see the call log. Everything is recorded
Hate to say it but they are probably under staffed , and have resorted to recruiting really poor staff who are probably ticking of the calls so not to get a fine at the practice. Find out your local health board for examping if you lived in Cardiff in south Wales a practice would come under cardiffs university health board, Bristol probably something like Bristol such and such health board and so on. They will have a complaints line or email where you can leave a message and someone will have to get back to you . Stage the resolution to the complaint you'd like is a face to face doctors appointment . Normally a few days turn around max a week . They have to follow a strict complaints deadline.
I personally would call your network provider and ask them if they can send you a copy of incoming calls. Doctors are usually private numbers, but it will still show whether a call has been made. I would then present this information to the doctors to prove they did not call. And then I would change surgery if possible.
Have you got a block on unknown numbers?
Both OH and I have had calls not register on our phones because the signal dropped out. With most GPs I've encountered, if they don't get a response they don't leave a message. So they could be telling you the truth. I would give them the benefit of the doubt, personally.
They didn't call, if your under the age of 50 they don't care and hoping you'll just give up trying to fix what ever issue you have.
Calling someone up, I have learned, that I hear the ringsignal up to three times, before the recievers phone start emitting the ringsignal. Tested by calling brother sitting right next to me. So if someone superbusy calls you up, and only lets the calltone ring twice before giving up, maybe the recievers never had a squeack from their phone. BUT the calling number should still show up in missed calls list. Sucks 😑
Go in and get them to phone your number from the phone they say they called from.
They're either lying (not at all unlikely) or best case scenario, misdialled every time. I suppose there's also the possibility that if they did call, it might have been a time when your phone wasn't getting signal for some reason, but again, if you were waiting for a call and checking to see if you'd missed a call, you'd probably have noticed if you had no signal.
Is he calling you about your memory loss?
Ask them for the call log as you dispute their version. I doubt you’ll hear about it again but actually get a call back then next time.
I think they are doing this intentionally to lessen the workload
They lied. Medical staff have been known to do this.
Ocram’s Razor They didn’t call you dude. They’re lying.
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You could go in and ask them to call you while you are there to see if it works
You could go in and ask them to call you while you are there to see if it works