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.

Yes leverette. I did.

oh FFS that is ridiculous! OOHRs is notorious for being a maze that is impossible for a mere patient to navigate, but your experience really is beyond parody.

if you could treat it your self - why did you go in the first place?

I saw your op, you admitted you left it a long time to get her seen too, it was not an accident or an emergency, you didn't have an appointment .

Yes she was rude but there are people that need treating as a serious matter.

If people on mn hadn't sent 'only tigers' you wouldn't have even gone.

YABVVVU to brand the NHS the way you have, enjoy the reforms and look forward to the days when your experience seemed good (you think its shit now just wait and see)

The NHS does have some very pointless people within it, but it is very unlikely to be the medical staff that work their arses off, to unachievable targets and in conditions that most people wouldn't accept in employment.

She shouldn't have been so rude and that was not ok but to contact pals? Just go to the go on Monday.

That should be 'impy' and go to the gp stupid phone

why didn't you just ask a pharmacist? impetigo is hardly an emergency

i werks fur da nhessss tu
ooh ooh ooh
:o
Lol at all the people coming on to educate the OP on how hard they work

That's the thing I enjoy about my job the most, how much the public value us.

The OP works for the NHS too

stealth have you been at the ?

I wish!! No, just was doing my best halfwit, followed by my best monkey, though i fear it does not come across well in print

Ha ha stealth

Didn't get it

YANBU .
I am nurse . Long time qualified .

it is now staffed by arrogant berks who don't have a brain cell between them.

If people only knew the REAL state of the NHS. It's diabolical . And scary. RIP NHS ( thanks to Spameron and his fag hag Lansley who have practically privatised it anyway )

Wasn't it monkeys who wrote most of Shakespeare's plays anyway? Or am I thinking of something else?

Flo impetigo isn't just a minor skin complaint. It can make people feel really quite unwell - and sometimes requires oral antibiotics in addition to cream.
So no a trip to the pharmacist wouldn't suffice.

YANBU - I feel it is run by halfwits too.

I've been told its not an A&E problem when I brought my DD there once. They saw her anyway. I just thought well tbh its not helpful of you to say that as I'm hardly going to rock up at 3am with a 3yr old whilst heavily pregnant unless I thought it was an emergency. You don't agree but I thought it was so I did what I thought best. My crystal ball was malfunctioning that day!

I think staff should avoid judging people as far as possible. Maybe a bit of re-education but not turning people away. In the end its your job to be professional which doesn't include cats bum faces or shouting at patients whatever you may think of them (and I speak as someone who has endured my fair share of drunk, sweary people in A&E).

There's no excuse for rudeness (except when faced with accusations of being an arrogant berk without a shared brain cell, NannyPlum if you've been qualified that long you should know better), but believe me when I say that if we turned no-one away the whole service would grind to a total standstill. Mamadoc you wouldn't believe what people will come to A&E for, honest you wouldn't!

I've admittedly not done triage but I have worked in A&E a lot so I can well believe how trivial some of it is. My own best encounters included a woman who ran out of tampax and thought we might have some (I think we gave her some as well) and someone who called an ambulance for a bee sting not to mention all the homeless people who fancy a bed and a sarnie when its cold.

In my line of work its the drunk 'suicidal' people who are the worst. Well maybe they did say to someone at some point that they wanted to die but right now they can't stand upright and are vomiting on my shoes and by the time they are fit enough to speak they will have forgotten anyway!

I still think that on the whole everyone should get a sympathetic hearing. I've sometimes heard staff be nasty about people they regard as a nuisance eg repeat self harmers but if you know the back story it can put a whole fresh perspective on things.

I will say one final time so listen closeely...

I DIDN'T WANT TO BE IN A&E. I TOLD THEM THAT. THEY JUST DIDN'T TELL ME WHERE I SHOULD GO FOR AN HOUR. And were rude to me first before I ever was.

Fin.

How is your dd this morn hermione?

Still oozing

Don't even get me started on the out of ours service. Found out I was pg on Saturday morning last week. By Sunday I ha developed severe toothache. Called local care direct to be told there were no emergency dental appointments left and I would have to visit my own dentist on Wednesday after bank holiday. I knew that the toothache was an infection as I had a root canal on this tooth last year so couldn't be a dodgy tooth, and also I was feeling shivery and unwell with it. Told them this and they still insisted that I needed A dentist as gp cannot precribe antibiorics for dental pain. I suffered through until Wednesday on paracetamol and prayers.
Wednesday Morning when I saw my own dentist who took one look at my puffy face, touched the tooth in question and told me it was an infection but that he wasnt comfortable giving antibiotics as I am pregnant and I needed to see the gp. I luckily managed to get an appt with the gp later that afternoon who took my temp (38.5) prescribed me antibiotics and swore under his breath a few times about bloody idiots in out of hours should have sent me to the gp straight away as pregnant woman complaining of fever shouldn't be left for 4 days in agony. I have to say I agreed with him.

Was the GP not irritated that there wasn't an emergency dental service that you could access and then when you did see one they wouldn't prescribe? A GP is not qualified to treat dental conditions.