In an emergency...

[Starbuck999]

Call the emergency services.

Today someone called 999 for an ambulance because they got stung by a nettle and their foot was itching. An adult man with no other symptoms, just an itchy foot - 2 mins after being stung by one stray garden nettle.

Yesterday a school receptionist called NHS Direct and not 999 because a 4 year old reception child was having severe difficulty breathing and had forgotten his asthma pump! They put her through to 999 after assessing him and realising it was very life threatening!

AIBU in thinking some people really need to engage their brain?!?

Yanbu at all

YANBU

Some people seem to lack any common sense!

It always amazes me how different people's perception of an "emergency" is.

I know it's different, but I'm a vet and used to do out-of-hours emergency work. I saw an emergency bit of chewing gum stuck to a dog's paw, an emergency case of fleas (3am) and an emergency erection (did have a bit of a at that one)

Otoh, had a guy saunter in one day saying his dog had a "cut" on its head. Told him to bring it in. It arrived with half its scalp missing and a fountain of blood jetting merrily up in the air- he had run it over with the lawnmower!

So it saddens me, but doesn't really surprise me, to read about the ludicrous reasons people have given for calling an ambulance, or the times when they haven't but should have

I was chatting to a guy the other day on the bus and he was very sweet, elderly man - he told me all about hi ill health and dodgy knee and how he was waiting for a hip replacement when he was no longer feeling under the weather.

As I left I said, "hope you feel well enough soon to have your hip op" and he replied cheerily "thanks, just need to shake off this darn leukemia and I'll be fine".

I was . Gods honest truth!

Starbuck Did you manage to resist hugging him?

www.neenaw.co.uk/

There's a book too. My DH and MiL both used to work in ambo control and this stuff is all too true.

YANBU. There are frequently stories in the paper about what people use 999 for. It is bloody disgusting and I think every one that isn't a real emergency (or genuinely thought to be so) should be fined for it. Makes me very

i work for nhs 24 and we deal with all of the calls that 999 won't send ambulance to.

a large percentage of them call 999 knowing that it'll be sent onto us, therefore we end up calling them, saving them the cost of calling us in the first place...

it's also very common to call us instead of 999 in a truly life threatening situation as often people go into a state of denial. i've lost count of the number of calls i've received where the patient is unconscious and/or not breathing.

YANBU

yanbu a few years ago my neighbours ds1 fell in her garden hehad the smallist cut on his head and they rang 999 also a knew a lady who was in labour and rang for an ambulance twice but both times got sent home ,it could of been really needed somewhere else ,they should be made to pay !!

In a way I suppose it's a case of the stories about people calling 999 when it's unecessary that make people think twice about whether they should call when it is a real emergency IYKWIM.

That said YANBU to think that a child not breathing properly is an emergency.

related article from todays sun

Seriously,

What is the point of NHS direct? Is it for stupid people to call who have a cold or a small cut?

Every time we have called concerning our son, we have been told that a "medical professional" will call back within 30 mins. This medical professional is always at most a nurse (I suspect frequently someone less qualified) who goes through a list of v basic questions. We end up at A&E every time as clearly we are not going to call with a sniffle or a relatively benign fever which can be controlled with Calpol. We have now given up on NHS direct entirely and make a decision between close monitoring at home and A&E, who are very good at our local hospital (St George's, Tooting).

The real problem is that there is no longer anything between a nurse on the phone and A&E. Out of hours doctors are almost non existent in our area (SW London) so one tends to use A&E like an out of hours doctor service. That works better in paediatrics that for adults as at least you do not need to wait behind a queue of drunks.

Some of the 999 stories above are quite shocking, though!

That?s mild compared to some I have heard/seen/witnessed.
Was in A& E recently (as patient was brought in by ambulance, but in my defence t?was the GP who called it not me). Was waiting for a ward bed and we saw something that I thought was an urban/nurse myth.
OH had witnessed a disturbance in the waiting triage area, a couple shouting that they had been there waiting for hours to be seen (don?t know what was wrong or which of them had the problem, at this point, but they were well enough to shout/ yell/threaten stand outside smoking) OH was kept bumping in to them when he was popping in and out making calls.

Anyway, it suddenly all goes quiet, even I noticed, 30 minutes later the man from the couple rolls in on a stretcher having been brought in by ambulance, apparently they went home and called an ambulance.

The staff were very professional as they explained that the way you arrive to A & E makes no difference in how quickly you get seen, and that he could go wait in the triage area again. (You couldn?t help hearing as he was shouting the odds again).

OH nearly wet himself laughing, especially when the next time he went out to use the phone he said that the waiting area was twice as full now, and we assume that he went to the back of the new waiting list???.

YANBU -

TBH I don't really trust NHS Direct. My aunt worked there for a while and she's not a qualified nurse at all.

larrygrylls. i appreciate you're personal expereince but you don't know the half of it.

nhs24 and nhs direct are different services so i can't speak directly for them but we (nhs24) deal with an enormous range of calls, not just triaging temperatures. we organise out of hours district nurses, dental assessment, mental health (suicides/breakdowns, depression), professional to professional... the list goes on.

it is a nurse led service so if you get through to someone directly, it'll be a nurse unless it's something very simple to assess (straightforward UTI/minor ailment) or something immediately life threatening like cardiac arrest or stroke, in which case the call handler is trained to route the call appropriately to 999. alot of our calls are send down for GP to triage though so often it's actually a dr you speak to.

i suggest you find out more about it before judging in such an offhand manner.

your aunt would have been a call handler mahraih. jesus, the ignorance is unbelievable.

I'm just about to call 999 as I've run out of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers.

Blinks,

That is fine BUT why not say what it is and not suggest people with sick children call it.

I am sure it does some things very well but if a relatively educated sick person calls it (or someone with a sick child), it really adds nothing.

NHS 24 have been very helpful every time I've had cause to call them.

it serves ALL people requiring out of hours assessment. if you are a medical professional i can understand that it would add nothing as you would know whether it required A&E attendance/ambulance or self care.

if you are educated generally but not specifically in medicine and you're unsure whether your child is seriously ill, it serves to either reassure of arrange out of hours GP attendence/A&E. as it's a telephone service it's impossible to diagnose directly so if that is your expectation, you will always be disappointed... we are duty bound to reach the most clinically safe outcome for the patient, not to satisfy the expectations of the parent, regardless of how educated they are.

and we are not a service like BT or Tesco. we're not obliged to sell our service.

Blinks,

I guess that is fine and I am sure it serves a purpose. However, you are kind of agreeing with me that it in no way serves to substitute for a proper out of hours doctor service.

I think it is a scandal that that no longer exists.

Not sure that's true, larrygrylls. I've had good advice from NHS Direct (I know nothing about NHS24...). I think it's particularly useful for inexperienced parents with limited local support. For example, my DD woke up one weekend with one side of her face very swollen. NHS Direct reassured me that it was a common side-effect of a bad cold in one so young - I felt better and the swelling was gone within hours.

Also useful for students (see under 'inexperienced' and 'limited local support'). It was great for telling me how to look after my drunk/unconscious friend without bothering any actual medics!

x-posts from about ten minutes ago!