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?!?

i'm not agreeing with you at all, LG.

there is an out of hours GP service and we arrange a home visit if that is appropriate. before arranging it though the symptoms and circumstances are assessed. if the patient or parents/carers have transportation and/or are able to attend PCEC for GP assessment, then that is organised. the advisor asks questions to rule out more serious and urgent conditions requiring more urgent assessment (ie ambulance). they then assess HOW urgent the patient needs to be assessed and the appointment time is organised based on that assessment.

alot of people get very annoyed not to immediately have a GP dispatched to their house during the night when they're perfectly able to get to the out of hours themselves.

NHS direct advised my friend that if I was dropping in and out of consciousness, slurring and not seeming to know where I was, I was almost certainly drunk (despite not having had any alcohol) or on drugs, and they were timewasting.

I'd fallen and hit my head and was concussed. We were not impressed afterwards. Surely it doesn't take much medical knowledge to know that losing consciousness is actually not terribly safe, even if you do think the person is drunk?

Blinks,

I cannot speak for your area but I can categorically say that we have never been offered anything other than A&E when we called NHS24. We would happily have taken our son to an out of hours doctor.

Labmonkey, I have met Nee Naw and he/she is very charming indeed. I have learned a lot from that blog.

like i said, i work for nhs24 , not nhs direct, who i'm pretty sure you called if you're in england.

the majority of outcomes though are for out of hours GP assessment which often is in an area near an A&E at a hospital or MIU.

Blinks,

Where is NHS24 and where is NHS direct? We called the only line which was open at midnight, I think. If there is a better alternative, would love to hear it.

If you called NHS 24 from England you would be advised to call NHS direct and given the number.

nhs24 is scotland and nhs direct is england.

Nhs24 covers Scotland and NHS Direct serves England and Wales.

oops x-post sorry blinks.

OK Blinks,

I suspect maybe medical cover is better in Scotland. All I can tell you about is my own experience in SW London (and those of friends in other areas of London). It was clearly NHS Direct. Apologies if I confused the two.

larrygrylls- agree with everything you wrote at 10:25. NHS Direct is a gate keeper service to avoid doctors being bothered by sick people outside of office hours. Total waste of time. I live in rural North Wales and the nearest A&E is 25 miles away and that is the only out of hours care we have here.

Totally agree with Larrygrylls, NHS Direct is a complete waste of time. When I rang them when DSS was very wheezy they advised a 'nurse' would ring back within an hour. When they actually bothered to ring back 3 hours later they spoke to my sister, who had come to look after my other children when DSS was rushed to hospital by ambulance.

Luckily for DSS I had the presence of mind to ring the out of hours doctor service as I was concerned that 3 hours was a long time to wait for advice. The out of hours service arranged for an ambulance to be sent, and when they arrived his blood oxygen levels were dangerously low.

I think that NHS Direct is only suitable for people with no common sense to be advised that they dont need an ambulance for a splinter. Not for anyone who is actually capable of deciding that there child is ill enough to need help.

As a patient I've found NHS direct a waste of time, far quicker/ better treatment to go to the walk in centre

DH is a retained Fire Fighter tho, some of their 'emergency' calls are just as bad. Beeping smoke alarm (needed new battery), neighbours house on fire (Sunday afternoon bbq/ steam from central heating coming on) etc etc

larrygrylls- but there is an alternative - and it exists at St Georges - its the drop-in centre thing - its not A&E but they will sew up minor cuts and dole out meds for utis or conjunctivitus - the only problem is you cant use it if your dc are under 2.

Oh and there's an out of hours doctor service at St Helier as well - you just have to be referred from nhs direct.

HTH.

Omnishambles.

Thanks. May use it for myself and my wife though :). And our son will be 2 in June.

Is it a 24 hour thing?

Sadly not - its 7am until 10pm to stop it being deluged with drunks I suppose - thereafter its the A&E again.

Very good though if you need something minor on that day though and you cant get to the doctor etc.

maybe the scottish service IS better i always thought they were much the same... i know that nhs direct is about to be changed massively and nhs 24 is staying the same... perhaps bad patient experience has influenced that (although it may be more cutting it back financially). i think nhs24 has a more positive reputation from what i hear.

I've called NHS Direct a couple of times and they were really helpful. It was nothing major either time but both times they rang back within 20 minutes and were kind and helpful.

Never been to A+E with DD as both times I've contemplated it, the advice I got from NHS direct was all was needed.

I'm in Scotland, and just last night had to call the out-of-hours doctor for a friend. I suspected she'd had a third stroke; as it turned out I was wrong, her collapse and weakness was due to chronic starvation (but so were her previous two strokes).

(She's anorexic, btw.)

The doctor was supposed to arrive within two hours; he actually took 45 minutes.

And we live in a rural-ish part, not a big city.

By the way, in case anybody wonders what I said in my post, once it's deleted, or wants to repeat what I said, I've reported it as it makes me a little bit too identifiable and I shouldn't have posted it in the first place. Hindsight eh.

Interesting post - is it never acceptable to call an ambulance when in labour then?

Just curious.

I did. But only because I had a phenomenally quick labour (5min 2nd stage) and it was call an ambulance or willingly have an unassisted birth, because no way the midwife was going to get there in time. In the end, it happened so fast that the ambulance didn't get there until 15 mins after I'd given birth.