Would paramedics refer me to social services if they didnt ask me anything

[Sophie2082]

Flat is very messy as husband is extremely poorly. Kitchen has dirty dishes. I am doing it on my own and baby is a velcro 9 month old and breastfeeds on demand. Typing this while he is suckling from me. Husband is so poorly he keeps vomitting into a baby potty (obviously never been used by baby, i just got it in advance)

He called the ambulance v early in the morning. He is sleeping in the spare room which has the baby changing table, baby wardrobe and a playmat with toys on the floor (noticed after paramedics left there was a cable on the floor). Honestly baby moves v slowly and i am usually with baby so will carry him off when he touches anything he shouldnt. He cosleeps with me in the master bedroom and the cot is full of clean clothes ( i put away some when i get a moment). Baby has never slept in it as he cosleeps (of course the ambulance staff dont know that but i think they saw it while standing in hallway).

They took husband away in ambulance, he honestly wasnt very lucid and kept saying he has a learning disability which means he cant reach his GP so no records of thr GP appointment. Truth is he has private health insurance so usually goes for private medical care do a & e staff can't see any records. He doesnt have a learning disability but has been diagnosed with adhd and he got a private antibiotics prescription yesterday.

They took my husband and left me with baby. No questions asked about baby but they did see baby as i was carrying him while talking to them.

Are you sure you and DH are properly registered with your local nhs Health Centre? Perhaps that's why you can't get appointment?

Hi OP, I’m a healthcare professional who does lots of home visits and work with vulnerable communities so with lots of safeguarding. If I’m making a referral to CSC I need the consent of the family if it’s just for support, I can only do it without consent if I have safeguarding concerns and even then I would inform the family unless it was unsafe to do so. As PP have mentioned, the threshold for CSC is high and the home environment would factor if it suggested neglect- household clutter does not normally come into this category unless it was extreme (like hording). We have something called the clutter scale (you can google it) it helps us visualise what concerning clutter would look like and I’m sure will put your mind at rest! I hope your DP gets better soon.

I get that, but I think you need to make finding new friends a priority. You have a lot on your plate, and chatting with another mum over a cup of tea would do a lot to bring down your stress levels.

I know what it's like living with someone with mental health struggles. They're private, defensive, and very good at slowly making their coping mechanisms feel normal. You end up losing sight of how abnormal life with them actually is, and going a bit mad yourself.

I could be off-base, but that's the impression your posts are giving me. Like you need to get out of that house and get some air. Meet friends, hire a cleaner. Reinflate your life jacket, so you don't get pulled under 🌺

As a children’s nurse I can honestly say tell you sometimes I’ve no bloody idea. I’ve had children go back to houses with active drug taking, unstable parents, poor home environments and families. Despite us actively expressing our concerns. Your messy house is not going to trigger.

Your house needs to be safe, clutter is just clutter (as long as it’s not dirty and not hoarding).

I’m a paramedic. The room in the picture wouldn’t cause me much concern on its own. However, the strange behaviour of you and your husband that is c9ming across alongside it might, so I would be asking a few additional questions to help me figure out if a referral is warranted. We don’t just refer for safeguarding issues. We can also refer for welfare concerns.

Paramedics, police, Fire service etc are always making safeguarding referrals - probably to protect themselves (understandably). But whether anything is done about them is another matter.

Errr we werent strange when they were there. All they were concerned about was a rash my husband had and did he have any allergies. The light was very bright and he couldnt open his eyes, but needee to open them to walk downstairs

As for the reliance on private healthcare its quite common. I knew an italian fund manager who always lived in london for 20 years but had to get registered for a GP to get vaccinated for covid. Of course not the case for us as we have a baby and husband born here..

We are properly registered.

You can always get a GP appointment if you need one.

You just need to work out what “system”
your practice uses, ideally in advance, and then get organised.

Mine uses e-consult for urgent things. You fill in something online and then they contact you. But if you want something on the day you have to be logging on at 7.30/ 8am and make the request. No use logging in at 9am or later as they will likely be full.

My old practice used phone triage, but again you had to be ready to call at 8am on the dot to get a same day appointment. Again if you called at 9 you’d be told they were full and referred to A&E.

For both, something non-urgent could be booked in over the phone but it would likely be 2-3 weeks away, more if you wanted someone specific.

If you’re not sure, go into your practice and speak to the receptionists/ practice manager and work out whether you have the right access/ telephone numbers and then double check it at home. Ask them for advice if you don’t understand how to do things. They won’t be ignoring you but if you aren’t submitting things in the right way they might just be getting lost.

I honestly don’t know what you’ve been doing, but all my kids were vaccinated by my GP, plus obviously any time they had a cough, cold, needed antibiotics or a test of some sort. Myself and my partner also had all of our tests, checks, smears, contraception, routine stuff done by the GP. It’s really not useful to use A&E for this sort of thing and I doubt private walk-ins offer continuity of care in the same way.

no thats not their job. They weren’t there to attend the baby but your husband.

you are probably worrying yourself over nothing here. Please try and relax about it

Completely agree with this. Some of the situations we discharge children too are very concerning but social care aren’t bothered.

I think they might with yours & your husbands strange behaviour. Not so much the mess though unless it was dire.

The vaccination is fine. We had an initial vaccination and then have booked for subsequent ones.. When we have called the GP, they just tell us to go to a & e for the baby and as for us, they just say no more appointments

Re contraception, dh got a vasectomy and that was with his previous GP who did refer him. It was transferred to a private clinic and we stayed at oxford where he got it done while i was pregnant . Technically through nhs but dh just did a phone appointment and nhs gp wrote the referral. I never used contraception and i suffered from infertilty for years . Went 9 years with no contraception before getying pregnant. I was with another NHS GP which only did web appointments and got my testing done this way but it did take 9 months to get a referral to fertilty clinic as the GP kept requesting the wrong tests. I got pregnant naturally so didnt need it. I suspect that whole experience meant i didnt want to ever try to get pregnant again..

What our GPs dont do is appointments when we are actually ill.

It isn’t really true to say that it’s as simple as knowing whether you need to ring at 8 or fill in an eConsult. I can ring my GP at 8 on the dot, end up 41st in the queue and still not get an appointment with them. You’re lucky in that situation to even be in the phone queue. And they’ve closed the eConsult, so you can’t use that. Those are your options. Knowing how you should be able to get an appointment doesn’t mean that you’ll actually be able to get one.

I'm not in the UK, and from what I read on MN, the GPs work really differently than in many other countries. (In my country every GP has walk-in hours and appointment slots every day, so if you need to be seen on the day, you get)

It seems there really aren't enough appointment slots available, and to get hold of one you need to learn your practice's system - like calling at the exact time of the day.
I suppose they don't ignore you specifically, just that you don't follow the very specific sometimes ridiculous unwritten procedure to get in.

With a velcro baby do you have a sling to them in so you can do some handsfree cuddling and get on with some jobs? Just not being able to put the baby down isn't going to sustainable

I do. But then he wants to sleep and cry until i take him to bed. I did some cleaning this morning but it was better than usual.

I'm not saying you should leave him in his cot to cry but also he can be a little frustrated with you and you can finish what your doing without feeling bad.

I took baby and went to see dh in hospital. He said adhd is a learning disability as it affects how he processes information so was informing paramedic of this information.

He is very poorly in a dark room. Paramedics apparently thought it was sepsis. He says he hasnt been told definitively what it is

Big hugs OP. I also had a Velcro baby and it was so so hard. Constantly comfort feeding and would cry so much if I tried to put her down. And also an immigrant so I sympathize a lot with the lack of support network. Also I don’t think non-immigrants can appreciate how hard it is to navigate bureaucracy, healthcare etc that you haven’t grown up interacting with.

It sounds like you’re really over-thinking this at a very stressful time. And maybe your husband is also quite burnt out. I remember when DD was 1 year old and I finally had 6 hours straight sleep. It was so amazing. It will get easier soon, don’t worry xxxx

If a referral was made you face it if it comes. Worrying about it won't help and will just add to your list of stuff.

Is there a friend that can come give you a hand? You sound like you're completely overwhelmed and could do with someone to help you clear up, get on top of things and have a cup of tea and a friendly natter with.

I hope your hubby will be ok soon. Wishing you all well.

Thank you. They told me he is staying overnight in hospital

So you take your baby to A&E instead of the GP?

Of course they are going to see a 9 month old baby but quite frankly you are taking the piss here.

Paediatric A&E isn't supposed to be used in this way.

No one on here can say whether or not they will report to children's social care. Likely not if it's just messy and not dirty or serious safety hazard or hoarding. The threshold for referral, let alone social care accepting a referral is pretty high.

Most of the time professionals should tell parents when they are making a referral unless saying something could cause additional risk. However, the paramedics were focusing on your husband and likely a) didn't have the focus fully on the baby and b) any messiness / chaos hasn't actually harmed the baby as far as they are aware because they were there for your husband.

Would they be expected to question you if they did have safeguarding concerns? Possibly with non leading questions but they're not able to conduct their own actual child protection investigation.

There is a small chance that one of the paramedics on reflection noted the situation:

• messy / chaotic house
• could seem like baby doesn't have clear safe sleeping area
• husband claiming he has learning disabilities combined with messy house etc could suggest that you have caring responsibilities for him and baby and are not coping. (If he actually had learning DISABILITIES, even mild, and you had a baby together the caring responsibilities would likely be really high).
• if they realise he was lying, they might question his motives for never using NHS care and lying about it (e.g. drug seeking behaviours).

Then, the paramedics might have made a referral on reflection later in their shift. It is unlikely, but if it does happen and it is accepted you'll be contacted fairly quickly and can address any issues etc through the investigation process.

He clarified to me he considers adhd a learning disability and he does have adhd so that is not a lie.