Main Surgery – 01829 732401
(all calls are recorded)
Option 1 – Reception
Option 2 – Secretary

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A day in the life of… a Medical Secretary

There are 3 part time secretaries and the office is manned between 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. At busy times our answer machine will be on. Please leave us a message and we will return your call.

The first job of the day is opening and sorting through all the incoming mail we receive.  This is all date stamped.  All clinical correspondence is scanned and inserted into patient’s computer records.  We also receive letters electronically. We will receive further mail from mid morning onwards.

Any prescription requests we receive in the post are passed to the prescription desk.  As well as the large amount of hospital mail we receive we also get documents such as holiday cancellation forms, letters / forms from solicitors, Social Services, Benefits Agency, Social Security, DVLA and many insurance companies to name but a few.  These all require a doctor to reply.

One of our main jobs is processing referral letters, sending replies to insurance companies and the many outside agencies listed previously.  We have 2 Partners, 2 salaried GPs, 1 GP Registrar and 1 Nurse Practitioner, so there is always a large volume of typing.  Almost all our referrals are sent electronically.  We also do some administration work on behalf of our 2 Practice Nurses.

We deal with a wide variety of patient queries and we are constantly liaising with the hospitals, so our telephone line can be extremely busy.  The secretaries office is always busy but Monday mornings and Friday afternoons tend to be the busiest.

Date published: 30 November 2014
Date last updated: 8 September 2023