When is it right to call 999?

[CanadaMoose91]

Let me preface this by saying that obvious time wasters (scraped knee, runny nose) need not apply.

But I've seen so many people say that only cardiac arrest, stroke, or issues breathing are acceptable. This worries me, as I haven't got a car, and wouldn't be able to drive myself or my family to A&E if anything happened.

For example, a few weeks back I was having severe pains in my back and stomach - a pain so intense that I was writhing, was vomiting, and couldn't keep anything down. It took over 5 hours of this pain to actually call 111, who told me I should have called earlier and sent an ambulance. It was diagnosed as kidney stones, and was told it would pass. The crew left immediately. I felt so awful and felt I had wasted money and resources on an already crumbling NHS.

The thing is, what is someone supposed to do in that situation? I don't want to cost the country a fortune, but what if it was something as serious as it felt? I don't want to be goady, I really just want to know if there is an alternative to 111, 999 or A&E if breathing is ok.

I think the general feeling is that if you can physically dial a number, you are not sick enough to need 999

This opens up an interesting paradox, either you are unable to dial 999 or because you are able, must not- the net effect is not dialling 999

hmmm

I phoned 111 a few days ago as I was pouring with blood after having my baby a few weeks ago and I am on blood thinners.

They said to get to a & e within the hour and did I have anyone to take me and I replied yes. I actually got the bus as my OH stayed at home with our children. I was worried they would send an ambulance if I had no one to take me which I didn’t need.

The only time I even phoned an ambulance was when I was a teenager and had such bad pain in my chest I couldn’t breath and it lasted hours before I called, I couldn’t talk or move (my Mum phoned) and of course it stopped by the time they got to me!

@jobjobjob our council has a 'fallen' emergency line with a team with equipment

This is what 111 exsists for. I’ve had an issue in the past and you access our local out of hours service via 111. Rang cause I needed advice and pain killers. They said that need to see the out of hours doctor and made an appointment for me.

Following week similar but much worse problem and dialed 111. They dispatched an ambulance but not as a high priority so took a couple of hours which was fine. As though I couldn’t move I also wasn’t an urgent risk.

I had tried a local pharmacist earlier with the problem and they where hopeless. And I had a telephone consultation with my doctor.

So for me in your case 111 was appropriate.

I also know they’ll never be upset with a false alarm with good intentions. It’s the usual time wasters they have a problem with.

The telephone number for our GP Out of Hours is 111 which is located in a local hospital, NHS Wales but not all areas at the moment.

There are lots of weird and wonderful conditions that don’t require you to be on the floor unconscious to need an ambulance.

I have Addison’s disease. It’s very rare, it means I don’t produce enough natural steroid. When I’m unwell with anything or have a nasty shock (car accident / emotional stress) I need to either double dose my daily steroids in the case of illness and / or inject myself with steroid and get myself to hospital ASAP. If I can’t do those things or if I’m too unwell then I need to ring an ambulance, so that they can inject me and give me fluids and take me to hospital where I can be assessed.

My consultant has arranged for a priority form to be sent to my local ambulance service so that if they get a call from my address they send someone immediately under top priority.

People don’t really understand my condition - I’ve walked into a and e before and had to explain I’ve got a chest infection (that had been going for 3 weeks by then with 3 lots of antibiotics) and I needed help so I didn’t go into shock and you could audibly hear people tutting in the waiting room. They obviously thought I was some massive hypochondriac time waster.

I think we all need to be careful about misusing 999 but at the same time it’s getting to the point people (like me) are actually afraid to use them for fear of being told off...!

And it’s true. The carers could’ve picked her up. But they won’t

It's not so much that they won't but that they're not allowed to. My elderly parents have carers and I have read the paperwork from the health trust. There is a long list of things that their carers are not allowed to do. Carers are poorly paid and overworked, they're not going to risk a disciplinary action from their employer on top of all that.

I think in your case OP you did the right thing. You phoned the non emergency number and was then assessed as an emergency. That was their medical assessment not yours.
Most areas do have some out of hours provision and you can find where yours is from the www.nhs.uk website.

In our area out of hours is 111
You then get a call back and offered an appointment in an area of the local hospital or the one in the next town? The call back can take2 or 3 hours and the appointment is usually for a few hours later so an out if hours GP appointment can take up to 6 hours to access.
As I live less than 5 minutes from A&E if I was very concerned I wouid go there under my own steam. However, if I felt whoever was ill couldn’t be transported safely I would call an ambulance. Chances are I could hospital under my own steam faster than an ambulance could get here but what people often forget is that firstly the paramedics can stabilise a patient before transporting them, secondly they can work on them during transport and finally the local hospital may not be the best option for treatment.

I've rung for an ambulance twice, both times it turned out I didn't need to, but at the time I had no way of knowing that at the time, and if the same thing happened again, I would probably react the same way.

When people are ill or in pain, often their reactions are OTT and they're scared, and there's no way they can make an informed decision in that moment, plus they're not trained doctors, so they can't be expected to have a level of knowledge to understand enough.

The NHS used to be able to absorb this, I suspect it's not the patients who are taking the piss that's the problem, it's the lack of funding from the government. That's where we should be looking, not at patients who called an ambulance having been in severe pain for hours, or with non life threatening but scary stuff with no idea what to do.

Taxi/minicab are your alternatives.

Treaclesoda I’ve already mentioned - the COULD, of course. They need to be trained. The company I work for have an alarm company and some of our responders are trained (otherwise, frankly, what’s the point in the service?) although they will always call an ambulance if other injuries appears to be present.

Care homes usually have people trained. Obviously they don’t call an ambulance for every elderly fall.

A lot of carers aren’t trained of course. And their company won’t train them, or take on the responsibility because they will expect the ambulance service to pick up the gaps in Their service. That is inappropriate and something needs to happen to stop it.

I have rung 999 more times than I can remember as my DD had epilepsy which often didn't respond to rescue medication resulting in her going into status epilepticus. Frankly the ambulance service has got so bad around these parts that after a 45 min wait last time, DH and I decided that if both of us were at home in this situation we would (against medical professional advice) try and take DD to A&E in the car. Hospital is 40 min drive away and ambulances were being despatched from there - so from 999 call to arrival at A&E was often 90 mins. Sadly DD has since died so we won't be put in this position but I really fear for the lives of people in our area when response times to RED calls take this long.

Another one who HAS to call 111 to access out if hours GP in my area (in England). That is what my GP website tells me to do. I have called before and they called back (8 hours later!) and booked me an appointment at an out of hours clinic. If the 111 staff call me an amulance/tell me to go to a&e I have no choice because even though I know where the out of hours gp is, they won't see me if 111 haven't booked me in...

Anaphylaxis here. 999 as soon as "the rash" appears.

bigblue, I’m so sorry for your loss.

Treaclesoda I’ve already mentioned - the COULD, of course. They need to be trained.

Yes, sorry, you're right, I know you did mention that, I jumped in too quickly.

In my parents case it is the health trust who provides the carers. Ironically in our area, it seems that the carers who are from private providers and are sub-contracters to the health trust seem to be allowed to do a lot more than the ones directly employed by the trust. It's very frustrating.

Op, you did the right thing. 111 is how you access Oohs, and they decide if you need gp or ambulance. No they cant diagnose over the phone but neither can you as you are not a trained medical professional. That is the point of 111, to make the calls that we cannot especially when we are in extreme pain.

I am a little uncomfortable with "a taxi to a &e" always being spouted as the best option on mn. Round near me (not rural) its a 40min drive to the nearest a&e minimum and that's around £60-80 in taxi fares and that's only one way. Which is a lot of money for someone to have to pay to access emergency health care, you are then starting to get a system whereby the poor cannot access medical care. Im not advocating using ambulances as taxis but mn is very "morally you should pay your own way to get to a&e" and for some people thats not always an option. I think having some empathy for people who are in a lot of pain can go a long way.

I once passed out, badly. Dh was there and called 999 as I didn’t come round quickly enough and I was so out of it. By the time the crew came I had come round more but felt awful, etc and I insisted on being taken in (even though they didn’t really want to) as I have fainted a few times previously and had been fine afterwards (ie came round in seconds and got up). They were good in hospital and did loads of tests (bloods, ecg, urine) but in end just said it was a particularly bad fainting episode. Have passed out twice since then and it was a ‘normal’ faint so I felt vindicated in going in at that point!!

I think the general feeling is that if you can physically dial a number, you are not sick enough to need 999.

Not true at all. My dad was in his car, about to drive himself to A&E when I stopped him and dialed 999. He was having a heart attack at the time.

My fil has had an ambulance called for him quite a few times because he has fallen and does not remember how it happened because of the concern he may have had another stroke or heart attack.
Ds has had an ambulance sent for by school a few times when he has become suddenly unwell - drowsy, vomiting etc.

I know someone who drove themselves to A&E with limited mobility after having had a minor stroke. By the standards of this thread, I should probably be congratulating them for not mis-using the ambulance service. But actually I think they were very selfish and irresponsible and were endangering other road users.

Two situations I have experienced.

DH had been diagnosed with pleurisy and was on ABs. He was told if the pain worsened to call OOH. He did and they immediately sent an ambulance "just in case it was an MI". Obviously better to be safe than sorry, but that kind of goes against example number 2...

I had (gynae) surgery and a week later my stitches burst. Constant heavy bleeding but any time I was vertical it was literally pouring out. There were puddles.
On the advice of the ward DH rang an ambulance for me - I had passed out. The first responder arrived having been told I had vaginal bleeding, assuming it was period or miscarriage related (despite DH explaining to 999). He couldn't move me, so called the ambulance, who on arrival asked the same thing no one seemed willing to listen to what the actual problem was, they were so caught up in the idea of "vaginal bleeding". I was in hospital for a week and treated for another further month for the anaemia resulting from the amount of blood lost.

I think in a perfect world, everyone drops dead or gets better without accessing medical care.

We are not going to have an NHS is people insist on selfishly using it. Think of it as a formal dining room- nice to have but not for actually eating at.

It’s very common for critically injured people to drive themselves to hospital. It’s shock and not really related to misuse of services. Here we recently had a gang member turn up in a mini cab after being shot in the back- it was just shock, not a desire to help out the NHS. Seems to wear off when they arrive and they collapse in the doorway!