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.

[edam]

rook - it's all very well GPs being irritated but what the hell is the poor patient supposed to do when they are in pain and suffering and the flipping dental service lets them down? Dental ill-health can cause other health problems too - there are proven links between gum disease and heart disease, for instance. And it is monstrous to leave a pregnant woman without antibiotics for four days. GPs may not be able to carry out root canal surgery but they can certainly spot an infection and prescribe antibiotics.

[Gentleness]

Occasion 1: NHS Direct didn't know my GP surgery existed. I gave them the names of 3 drs there and the street name and the name over the front door. They wanted me to find the postcode for them. I reminded them I'd called because I was anxious about my son's soaring temperatures and said no way was I leaving him because their systems weren't up to date. She accused me of not telling her it was a new surgery: it's been there over 10 years. 2 hours delays while they tried to work out which OOHC we should go to while I fumed and wondered about going to A&E but had been told to wait.

Occasion 2: NHS Direct told me to get my son to A&E fast but I stupidly rejected an ambulance thinking it was overkill and spending public money and all that. Reading the discharge notes later, I was angry to see the dr got them wrong and basically implied there was little reason to bring him in the first place - they told me they had no links to NHSDirect so couldn't follow up why I'd been told to take him in.

So - YES the systems can be rubbish and those using them incompetent BUT on so many other occasions (2 births, 2 operations, PND etc etc) staff were lovely, kind, competent, understanding and went the extra mile, often despite the systems.

[rookanga]

edam - It was a dental problem. I wasn't blaming rogers for ending up at the GPs, just that it doesn't seem acceptable for an OOH dental service to just say that there are no appointments left and leave someone with an abcess for days.

[Latara]

I haven't seen any actual monkeys at my local hospital.
They tend to live in jungles or zoos.

But i'm a nurse & half-wit. Half witty & half serious.

Not all hospital staff are perfect, but as an outpatient, & relative to inpatients myself - i can say that the vast majority of my experiences have been positive. (& i don't tell people that i'm a nurse when i'm outside work, unless they ask what job i do.)

Complaining to PALS is a good idea in cases of bad treatment, because certain people don't learn to improve their attitude / practice unless they are told that they need to.

[edam]

Oh, in that case we are in agreement.

OOHRs is well known for being a nightmare, disorganised and disconnected when you are dealing with straightforward medical problems requiring a doc or nurse, let alone when dentistry is thrown into the mix.

[sugarice]

Can she go to school tomorrow or is impy tiger astay at home condition?

[sugarice]

• a stay

[DameHermione]

She has maths GCSE tomorrow.

[Nancy66]

god, I wish MN had an editing facility.

you desperately need to re-write the second line of your post. Reads like she has herpes

[Grumpystiltskin]

I do an OOH dental job for four hours on Sundays. I get paid f all compared to running a private emergency dentist but I do it because I feel I am helping some really poorly people.
Once our appointments are gone, they are gone and I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect an unlimited service on a Sunday for what would cost you £17.50 IF you were eligible for NHS charges which ye majority of our patients aren't.

Pretty straightforward I think rook

[DameHermione]

Holy shit. 300 posts later and i never noticed!

how is pusy pussy pussie pusie pusey spelled?

[Nancy66]

pus-filled would be better

[nevergoogle]

YOU should have taken her to the GP earlier during normal hours.
It is YOUR responsibility.
If you knew what the problem was and could treat it yourself...WTF?
Stop it now, you're making a halfwit of yourself.

[rookanga]

Grumpy - Other OOH services cant turn people away just because they have seen some predetermined number of patients. Maybe its a problem with the way that services are commissioned?

[bighooraytoday]

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

Obviously, yes, YABU to state this on the basis of one experience and v rude.

Yes, the signposting should have been better and yes, the nurse sounds rude but I don' think you handled the situation v sensibly either.

Your DD has had the spots for several days but you don't see the GP.

Instead of making your own decision (you say you are a nurse), you ask MN.

On the basis of that, you suddenly decide that it may be impetigo which needs seeing immediately on a Friday evening! As a nurse, surely you must know that waiting until the morning is not going to make any difference (assuming that DD is not unwell which you don't mention). A&E is notoriously busy on Fri/ Sat evenings (which you should also know as a nurse).

Instead of calling the OOH service to find out the available services (whether on Friday/ Sat), you decide to just turn up. A lot of OOH services operate on booked appointments not sit and wait and it would have been much better to have checked and not just turned up, particularly with a young child in the evening. It is your fault that you didn't do this and that it added to your irritation of being passed from pillar to post.

At this point, you should have gone home and called, not gone to A&E. It is clearly not an accident or an emergency if she has had it for several days and is not unwell.

So, overall, the situation was totally avoidable and mostly of your making. It's not fair of you not to think the situation through properly (particularly as a nurse), and then blame everyone else without taking any responsibility yourself.

[DameHermione]

I know. Its what i'm best at. In my defence i'd had quite a lot of red wine when i wrote the original rant.

Also work got in the way of normal hours GP appointment. and By the time it had turned nasty it was after hours

[rookanga]

Are you for real?

[DameHermione]

BigH have you actually read any of what i wrote?

I. Know.

I am an arse. I am an arse who knows nothing about skin. I am an arse who thought the Walk In Centre was just that. It was last time I looked.

I work.

Said pus had got worse when I got home from work. Which happened to be on friday evening.

Knowing nothing about skin or pus I asked for advice.


I tried.

Obviously I screwed up.

BUT..... There is no call for being spoken to like dirt and there should have been an easier way to point me in the right direction.

[Grumpystiltskin]

Rook, it definitely is the way services are commissioned. When I first became an NHS dentist we were responsible for our own patients in an emergency and would go in, open up the surgery and fix them. the government used to pay us per "opening" and then for the treatment. So if you opened once & saw three people you would get one opening then three whatevers. Extractions, temp fillings etc.

Now the PCT is supposed to provide all ooh dental services. This is exceptionally expensive because i will get paid the same whether we see 12 patients or 2 (royal wedding bank hol only gave us 2!). There is also a nurse and a receptionist who must be paid, the result is a short service so the PCT can tick the box to say they're covered when actually the service is too short.

[rookanga]

It sounds a bit like the GP thing then, taking responsibility away for OOH cover from the individual practices and then being surprised that it is expensive to replace.

[Sirzy]

I have never known an OOH where you didn't need to phone, be traiged then go in.

The NHS is fantastic on the whole and something very much taken for granted

[Grumpystiltskin]

Apparently each emergency attendance cost the NHS £40ish when we were responsible, now it's more like £300. Ridiculous. Short sighted but we did all tell them this is what would happen.

[rookanga]

Plus the cost of inappropriate GP attendance with dental problems...

[Latara]

haha at the red wine - it's the favourite drink of many nurses.

I don't drink because i'm angelicly saintly (on meds).
But when i did i never enjoyed red wine.

Tip: when you get home have a relaxing hot drink instead; if you do have alcohol & feel cross then STEP AWAY from the internet...

It's easy to get things out of proportion when you are already stressed.
But you should have gone to a late opening pharmacy - they sell lotions for impetigo (if it was that).

With rashes - first do the glass test for menigitis / sepsis type rash, if it's that type of rash THEN do go to A&E.
If the patient has a high temp but it's not a sepsis rash - then phone your emergency GP.
As a nurse, you will know the symptoms of bad infection & cellulitis; if you suspect that then also phone the emergency GP.
Otherwise go to the local pharmacist for some lotion / calamine / anti-histamine & see the GP during normal hours.

Good luck for your DD's Maths GCSE - not fun, i hate maths! x

[aldiwhore]

YANBU to think a walk in centre is something to be walked in to... however, out of hours is different (well it is round here) along with the name change (from WIC to OOH) came a new shiny appointment system which adds at least 5 hours to the proceedings, sometimes more 'if A+E is busy' (because the steal Drs from the OOH surgery to save people's lives the selfish bastards).

YANBU to feel frustrated at bad management. YABU to refer to someone as a Monkey, when you're probably the 3743020484645 non emergency OOH patient they've had to explain the terrible management to, and they can't exactly control things can they?

You obviously knew how to treat this ailment, do you not stock up on Fucidin cream? You're a bit of a monkey nurse yourself then aren't you?

YANBU to being utterly pissed off at the illogical management of OOH surgeries, that they're getting less efficient not more, and its nothing to do with staff but managers and they're bright bloody ideas.