To think DS should have been seen before these people in OOH?

[SchroSawMargeryDaw]

This has been annoying me a bit and wanted to see if I was BU.

DS (18mo) took ill on Friday. He was screaming, had a temp, wouldn't eat or drink, didn't want to lie down and just seemed generally pretty ill. He would fall asleep but wake up screaming 30 mins later, I thought it was a virus and we would just wait it out.

He had about 4 hours in sleep in 30 hours and had been sick and then we noticed loads of discharge from his ear and half covering his face, he was really distressed. At this point I decided to phone NHS24, they phoned me back after a while and told me to go to OOH.

Got to OOH and it was quite busy, that's fine and we waited. We did notice some people come in after us and go in before us. Waited anyway. 2 girls came in around 30 minutes after us and told the receptionist that they hadn't been told to go by NHS24, they filled in a form and were told to wait, they then went on to moan at a person beside them for having his phone on and starting arguments, we asked how long it would be and were told up to an hour, DS was screaming but at the same time struggling to stay awake.

Receptionist then came and told us it would be up to an hour and a half, by this point everyone apart from 2 people who had been in before us had been seen. We were eventually called in a group of people and we went through, they gave us a room to sit in as by this point DS was very distressed, screaming and sleepy and crying in pain.

Then we notice the 2 girls go into the room with the nurse to be triaged, when they came out we asked the nurse what was going on as they hadn't even had an appointment, we were told it's done on a case by case basis. These girls walked in laughing and joking and we had DS sitting there screaming while unable to open his eyes. The girls were seen by the Dr next and then we were triaged, the nurse immediately handed us complaints details and said it wasn't right after seeing DS, there was a bit of a panic as the Dr then found a rash on DS but it turned out that the rash was from the heat.

Sorry about the long post but AIBU to think that DS should have been seen first in this instance? I know she gave me the complaints details but I wasn't sure if I was BU.

Chunky I wouldn't expect him to be seen first every time, I know he's precious to me but the world doesn't revolve around him. Just in this instance when he was coming across as very ill and isn't talking yet so can't tell me what is wrong.

I didn't realise Glasgow was different. If you self present here (st johns in livi) you go through a&e ooh is for appointments only, even though they are in the same place.

Hope ds is well soon schro

Glakit Thanks, I am sure he will be fine now the anti biotics have started to work. :)

DeWe Honestly, if they had just been smiling and joking and friendly I wouldn't have batted an eyelid, it's just the starting arguments etc. They just seemed to be trouble makers.

Yes Lothian run an appointments system - I think most of Scotland does, but in Glasgow you can just turn up.

Anyway. I see I am being UR. I just needed to know.

I will send a letter but I am just going to ask about their triage system and state my worry that such a small child who was obviously in pain, very very sleepy and quite floppy took so long to be seen. I wont actually complain.

Thanks everyone. :)

YANBU, I would have been hopping at that kind of delay.

"I will send a letter but I am just going to ask about their triage system and state my worry that such a small child who was obviously in pain, very very sleepy and quite floppy took so long to be seen."

That's fair and YWNBU to do that. I hope you

Oops.

I hope you get a proper response, too.

YABU .Your DC had earache and a heat rash you haven't a clue what was wrong with the girls!

^ yes, very fair to ask that.

I do understand your frustration but I agree that it's impossible to tell why others are there. It's also perfectly possible that other people play the system when it comes to non face to face triage? Frequent flyers will know what to say or write on the form to jump the queue...

Our service here is the new 111 where you get an appointment but its actually meaningless as clinical priority still takes precedent.

Thanks BreastMilk (have always loved your name :o), I'm not the kind of person who thinks that no one else can be suffering etc. I do understand that others do mask problems but this time, it just didn't feel right IYKWIM? There was others who went before us that came after and I had no problem with that, I assumed there would be reasons for it.

Yanbu that is appealing. In our out of hours babies and young children get priority. Definitely complain

Bang We also didn't know he had earache at that point btw. And it was a bit more than earache it was a viral infection and an ear infection and all the lovely bits that come with that (high temp etc). We didn't even know about the rash until we were seen.

Impatient I know that there will be people who need to be seen urgently but I think the problem is the over the phone triage. In A+E I could understand it as you're seen by triage immediately.

FWIW though, after he had been triaged by the Nurse we went straight in to the room to see the Dr afterwards.

Maybe it would be better if they had a similar triage system to A+E.

I can understand how you feel, was in a similar position with ds1 at 8mths, he was in a real state. Luckily the ooh gp had to come out to get you then, took one look at us and said to the waiting room, I'm sorry but in seeing that baby next . He was ok in the end but I was very grateful.

Dribble That was lovely of him and I'm glad your DS was okay, it's very scary when they are ill when they're so small. The GP did apologise to us a lot when she seen us and I explained to her about being unhappy with the situation and she seemed a bit she hadn't known they were in after us or without an appointment.

I think it may have been some kind of system error really but it was still quite worrying at the time.

I think its a bit concerning that triage took so long, the system is failing if they havent been able to triage quickly as they probably have no idea who is really poorly until the triage point.
I suspect the reason the girls may have been seen quickly was because of the effect they would have had on other patients if they were starting arguments.

Although there are some elements of your op that are a little U, YANBU in essence, especially since the triage nurse backed up your concern.

I think then, that your complaint should be that he had to wait too long for triage when he was feeling very unwell.
Leave out the fact that other patients did not seem as poorly, there are many reasons why someone who is seemingly less poorly needs more urgent care.
Focus on being directed there, waiting too long for triage. - after which he was immediately seen by dr which indicates his needs were urgent.

How long did you wait for triage?

OhYou You might be right about that really. They were still arguing with people as they left according to BIL (they drove us). I think it's because they do a sort of triage over the phone with NHS24 but they can't see anyone over the phone or do temps, heartrate etc.

Aldi I'm happy to accept that I have been U at bits, do I get to pull the pregnancy hormone card? :o

BlessYou That's a good idea and what I will do. We waited nearly 3 hours for triage but went straight into the room with the GP after.

Bloody hell! I agree, far too long for triage!!

BlessYou I think that's what my main problem was, no one knew if he was urgent enough to be seen quickly because we only seen the receptionist. I've never been anywhere where triage takes so long. It's normally pretty much as soon as you go in anywhere else here.

If he had been triaged and they said he could wait I would have accepted that, I was just worried as it looked like we were never going to be seen by anyone.

There was also a woman in the waiting room who had been there about as long as us, she was obviously struggling to breathe. I think she should have been seen or at least triaged sooner.

I don't know, the whole situation just didn't seem right.