to state the NHS has gone to the dogs, run by monkeys and staffed by halfwits?

[DameHermione]

The saga........
DD has infected looking pussy blistery spots.

It is friday evening. No hope of seeing locsl GP until at least monday.

I ask the MN hive mind for advice. Possibly impetigo. Definitely sore and pussy. OOH is suggested.

I trundle off 15 miles to OOH.

We arrive. There is a notice pinned to the door, 'If you are not expected please report to the Emergency Department'.

Odd. And not what it was a few months ago but off we trot to A&E round the corner.

In A&E i say to the receptionist 'We came for the OOH GP.'

'No problem' she says. Takes some details and we get asked to take a seat.

An hour later DDs name is called.

'Senior Sister' triages DD.

First she looks me up and down and snaps 'who are you?'

I explain what the problem is and say once again 'we came for the xxx unit, the out of hours GP'

She asks not once, not twice but Four times how long DD has been pussy. I tell her Four times it has been getting worse over the last few days.

She shouts at me. 'This should be seen by your GP'.

I replied 'I know. Thats why we came to the OOH unit.'

At this point she tells me the OOH unit has moved 5 more miles away.

Then she tells me to take DD to the GP tomorrow.

I say 'but tomorrow is saturday, which is why we csme to the OOH unit'

I am then told i need to take DD the extra 5 miles to the real OOH unit which closed in 5 minutes.

I give up at this point and suggest maybe they should put a notice on the door of the now ex-OOH unit or tell their receptionists to redirect people.

Only 'they can't do that as they aren't clinical and patients need triaging'

So at this point i tell the half-witted monkey who is masquerading as a nurse that as i too am a nurse, with considerably more braincells than her i will just treat DDs pus myself.

i might then have gone and purloined approriate dressings snd stuff from my mates upstairs but that would be theiving so i shant admit to it oh no

I will be wtiting to PALS.

Why didn't you take her to the GP sooner though? Isn't OOH GP for semi-serious, came over suddenly, type things? Genuine question... Don't bite my head off.

So it's been getting worse for a few days and you decide to get her seen on a Friday evening......

Halfwittery not just confined to the NHS eh ?

Because i work silly hours and like all good health professionals ignore stuff until it actually needs treating. Just so happened that by the time it had actually gone pussy and looked red and she was moaning that it was sore it was friday evening.

I do the; ignore it and it will either go away or turn into something more serious, school.

Works for me.

Sorry you had such a bad experience. But Yabu I'm very biased thoigh-the NHS drs and nurses saved my life and my baby s and we had months in hospital with numerous operations that without the NHS or super charged health insurance we could not possibly have afforded. So I think the NHS is bloody brilliant I am very sorry you had a lousy experience though and I hope your child is ok.

Oh she's bloody fine. My feelings are bruised though.

Hello again DameHermione. I am another NHS halfwit! You know the NHS is wonderful really just incredibly irritating when you have experiences like tonight, common sense is really in short supply sometimes. I often think the NHS should provide walls to bang heads on.

Can I just point out to you though the OOH doctor is intended for when you cannot get an appointment and really need to be seen before it is going to be possible. Your GP will be billed for your visit tonight and will no doubt be really happy about it as it wasn't really necessary

I know where you are coming from BUT as another seasoned NHS worker of the "oh it will be fine" school of parenting who like you then ends up on Friday night thinking "shit - maybe this does need treatment" - do you not have to ring your GP surgery - which even though you know is closed - gives you the OOH number so you can ring and get an appointment and check its location (ours seems to move regularly - was in a health centre, then next door to A & E - not sure if it still is). therefore YABU for bypasssing the procedure because as an NHS worker you know there is " a care pathway" for sodding everything and that you must follow said pathway and never detour

Hello fifty.

if my own GP was able to give me an sppointment for said pussy child sooner than next thursday i'd be perfectly happy.

See. Run by monkeys. Who decides the GP appointment system? Who decides who gets billed for what? And which stupid fool decides to close an OOH unit without advertiding it to the locak community?

And OF COURSE I AM UNREASONABLE!

THE NHS IS BLOODY BRILLIANT.AND THANK THE LORD WE HAVEBIT.

however. The daft woman i just saw ws a cow. And a sign on the door would be useful.

Well, if you pay us peanuts and cut our pensions the 5* service will stop there. I'm very about what they are doing to the nhs, my employer. But, after all it is 'gold plated'

Hmm. Maybe she'd just opened her psyslip. Or checked the off duty.

Our OOH is triaged over the phone. Maybe you should have called first.

Hope dd's better soon.

@dame one of the most shocking things about the nhs is that gp apps and prescriptions are controlled by untrained receptionists.

however, you do generally have to make an app with ohh gp. who would prob have been happy to see your daughter is you had called. I've been with a bladder infection, which tbh sounds less serious.

YANBU, the service you got was crap.
I am so grateful for our little Minor Injures Unit. We are at the ends of the earth where we live, 22 miles from the nearest 'proper' hospital. We are also 20 miles from the nearest out of hours on call docs. They normally tell us to go to MIU. There are marvelous Nurse consultants there, they give the very best care and refer to proper hospital if necessary.
In your case, they would have given appropriate treatment. When I had a strangulated hernia, they gave very good pain relief until ambulance arrived.
When my DS had an inf after an op on his eye they told us to take him to the proper hosp. All as it should be!!
Bet you wish you lived at the end of the earth like me!

I don't understand why you didn't phone up to make an OOH appointment. Then you would have 1) had an appointment for a relatively fixed time (hollow laugh) and 2) found out they had moved....

Or maybe not ( I speak as a person who phoned to make a restaurant reservation and then turned up at the wrong branch. I didn't know they had opened a second one down the road!)

I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but I would never go to an OOHs surgery without phoning first.

And I don't even know why...I suppose it just wouldn't feel right to turn up without having rang ahead.

Sorry about your experience though, hope your DD's ok.

Im surprised that anyone would try to go to an OOH centre without phoning first. Where I am they wont see people who just turn up, only those who have been asked to attend after phone triage. If your OOH had the same procedure that might be why they didnt have a notice out the front, because they would be expecting to tell everyone where to attend.

Dont know how it works in England but here in Scotland you cant just turn up at OOH you have to phone NHS 24 (our telephone equivalent of NHS Direct) and they make an appointment for you.

Hmmm.

Maybe if i.used tbe nhs system more often i'd know how to do it properly.

Although it has to be said. If you rock ip in uniform with a quite obviously broken finger thry are not do bad.

If you phone your GP when they are shut you should get a recorded message telling you how to proceed if you need to be seen before they reopen.

I think that the repeated references to the nursing staff as monkeys is offensive.

OP, i feel your pain.

OK, maybe with hindsight you could have called up, but what annoys me about this sort of situation is the complete lack of gumption (not to mention manners) in the people concerend.

Why, at no time in that hours wait, did it occur to them to suggest you went to the right place? Its not that hard surely?

Or after an hour wait when it was realised that you were at the wrong place, could they not have apologised for the misunderstanding and phoned up the right place to see if there was still time to see you?

This would be normal behaviour in most places but for some reason the standards to which many of these people seem to work seem so low in comparison to the real world.

I used to be very PRO the NHS but after my experiences this year, i can only conclude that as well as some lovely, dedicated, hardworking staff, there are some complete idiots who wouldn't be tolerated in the private sector and it must drive the competent, hardworking staff absolutely nuts and i can't understand why they aren't honest about it, they must know.

And i wouldn't hold out much hope with PALS either....
This is word for word a conversation i had with them today:

Me- hello this is xx i've just picked up a message on my phone asking me to call but they didn't leave a name so i don't know who to ask for

Them- Oh it wasn't me, i don't think anyone else here has called anyone, it must be a different department

Me- but they left this number

Them- Well maybe they left the wrong number

Me- but they did say they were from PALS. It must be someone there.

Them- No-one has been using the phones this morning

Me- can you just ask, please?

Them- Hold on (long silence)

Them 2 hello xxx, Thanks for calling me back, i have tried to reach you a few times this morning

Me- thats because i can't answer this number at work and i have specifically asked you not to ring it.

Them 2- well no-one told me, all i've got is the email from you

Me- it was in the email

And so on and so on. the third time they've called me on that number, the third time i've asked them not too. Surely not that hard??

No non the nurse was half-witted. The 'people' in charge are monkeys.

So, not using the NHS system that often, wuld you just rock up at the GP surgery without an appointment too, or would you phone first?