111 is not as easy as ABC !!!

[AmIAmazedOrWhat]

With suffering from a Blocked Artery in my left leg a phone call to 111 was required.

10.15pm. Call was made and call taker went for further advice, upon returning she stated that an emergency Ambulance had been deployed.

10.40pm. I received a telephone call from Ambulance service stating Ambulance had arrived at 16 ???? street by mistake and was travelling to 16 ???? street ( my address ).

3.27am. I dialed 1471 for last callers number and dialed it, a recorded message from Ambulance service advised me to call 111 or 999.

3.35AM. I phoned 111 and asked why the Ambulance had not arrived, the lady informed me that the Ambulance crew had collected me and taken me to hospital... now that is very strange when I am laying here !!!

After numerous apologies from the 111 call Taker I advised her where to put her apologies and Politely requested her to cancel the Ambulance and I will request a family member to transport me to hospital.

Ambulance crews need to answer emergencies and mine is not life threatening ( hence the long waiting time that I endured before I wished to trouble anyone ).

I have recently had a heart attack and dread to think that had it been another one, this fiasco may have ended my life.

Something needs to be done before a Dreadful mistake is made that costs someones life.

111 Is nothing but a joke.

When I was miscarrying I though the best answer would be for me and my partner to get on the bus back home. Then called 111 on the bus. They refused to deal with me because I could not give exact coordinates as I was travelling and hung up.then once I got home I called and got told off for not calling as soon as it started. Was also told that I definitely wasn't miscarrying as I would have more symptoms

Gosh

That's terrible. If you can be arsed, please complain so that this is investigated.

Hope you're feeling better.

I've yet to hear anything good about this service. I hope you are feeling OK now op. Call 999 next time, don't risk your health if you've just had a heart attack.

Unfortunatly a very similar senario happened to my neighbour last week, except she called 999!

Her 94 year old father fell in her driveway at 7.30 at night. His head was bleeding badly and his heart rate was off the scale. 999 told her she must not move him and an ambulance was in its way. She covered him with duvets as he was shivering and waited.

Nothing happened.

She phoned back 4 times and kept being told it was in its way. She was also told it was a very busy night and they were only dealing with emergencies and a 94 year old lying in the driveway with a bleeding head wound and a very high heart rate wasn't an emergency.

We are rural and at 10.30 a first responder arrived. He'd only been rung 15 mins before. (They are supposed to be informed at the same time as the ambulance as it can take up to 30 mins for one to get to us). He phoned the emergency dr as he was so concerned and one arrived 15 mins later.

It was 11.30 and they dealt with his cut head and checked him over. Still no ambulance so they decided it was best to just get him into bed. So they rang 999 to cancel and were told the ambulance had already taken him to hospital
Our local dr and nurse have been going to see him each day. The dr told my neighbour that if anything like this happens again to tell the operator the person isn't breathing. That's the only way to get an ambulance apparently.

I hope you are ok op

And when I say rural we aren't up a mountain or anything, just in a village 25 mins from the nearest hospital. We are actually only 90 mins into London on the train.

I rang yesterday as my specialist nurse said I needed my fourth round of antibiotics as I have cellulitis around my stoma....
'Well how do you know you have it'....
I explained....
'What's marbling' (when I explained what it looked like)
Mmmmmmm I am not convinced she tells me....
I will ring you back in 6-8 hours with an answer!!

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/02/cyclist-died-after-three-ambulances-could-not-find-olympic-velodrome

This was a very sad story in the last few days. I would certainly complain as the outcome of such a mistake could be much more serious.

Also if it was not a life threatening emergency and you had family members able to take you why was an ambulance needed in the first place? I am not being critical of you - I realise they had dispatched it without telling you first.

Horrible lack of funding combined with continued abuse of the ambulance system. there will be more and more sad stories I think.

However regarding 111 I don't know if it is because we were one of the pilot areas and so have had it for a long time now but I have always found them great. Have been onto them this morning to get an ooh appointment for ds1 and had no problems at all. We have always had good, sensible advice from them, an ambulance when it was needed for ds2 and when I've rung up just asking for an ooh appointment they've been perfectly happy to take my word for it, skim the mandatory bleeding and breathing questions and make me an appointment.

A couple of years ago my mum was left on the floor with a really badly broken leg for over 3 hours waiting for an ambulance. Ok not life threatening but she was in dire need of some pain relief!

With the greatest of respect OP, ambulances are there to get you to hospital when you physically can't get there by other means or it's a real life threatening emergency. If it was safe for a family member to transport you five hours later, then that's the course of action you should have taken in the first place. Or you should have got a taxi.

But Becky she didn't ask for an ambulance, they sent one. Had they said can you get yourself to a and E then of course she would have done that. But she was expecting an ambulance so waited for one.

Well said redexpat

My little niece has a severe and frightening form of epilepsy which requires immediate medical intervention.

She had a seizure last year. She is supposed to be flagged with our ambulance service as high priority.

45 minutes it took the first responder to arrive. Another 10 mins for the ambulance crew. By this time niece was in a critical condition and the only option they had was to give her the meds that the ambulance crew carry which they knew would cause respiratory arrest and try and keep her alive long enough to get to the hospital to go onto life support while they got everything under control.

111 don't actually run the ambulances though (slightly depending on your area as sometimes ambulance trusts do run them, bur they're not all linked up in one area)

So, they referred your local ambulance provider as a priority. depending on your area I'm going to guess you were a red 2 which has a target of 8 minutes but on Saturday night then 15-20 minutes to get their isn't bad. (They got to the wrong street but these things happen and 111 isn't responsible for the ambulance GPS)

Ambulance service then messed up the dispatch somehow, but sent a message to 111 saying that you had been collected.

Then when you rang back 111, they told you what had happened and that the ambulance dispatchers had made a mistake and were very sorry but you told them where they could stick their apologies. (You sound charming by the way)

And you think, based on an ambulance dispatcher making a mistake 111 should be scrapped? If they had triaged you wrongly that would be a good reason to be upset but they dispatched you an ambulance because they thought you needed one. Not their fault the ambulance messed up the call.

Ambulance services across the country are struggling and there are issues with 111 who are overly risk averse adding to the pressure but in this case I'm struggling to see why a whole service should be scrapped because an ambulance dispatcher made a mistake.

Mixed up their and there. Tragic.

I could blame autocorrect on the iPhone but not sure what the hell happened there (their!)

My DS got quite poorly earlier this year, when he was about 19 months old. I called 111 because I couldn't get his fever under control no matter what I tried.
At 10.20pm, the person from 111 told me that as he had some symptoms of meningitis they were sending an ambulance. At midnight I told them to cancel it, as we would be able to make the ten minute journey much quicker in our own bloody car.
He had tonsillitis, so luckily nothing serious. I was not impressed.