AIBU to think this is a bit ridiculous (NHS 111)

[UsernameNotAvailableApparently]

I very rarely feel unwell enough that I go to hospital or call 111 for anything; I generally try and wait until I can see my GP. However, last night I had a headache that was blinding, wasn’t getting better with painkillers and also was struggling to catch my breath. I had my second vaccine about 10 days ago and they’d said to me if I have a headache that doesn’t improve with painkillers to call 111.

So at 9pm I tried calling but after a fairly long wait the message informed me to fill in my symptoms online which I did. At 9.30pm they advised a nurse would call me back within two hours so I decided to wait up despite feeling exhausted by the headache pain and just wanting sleep.

Half 11 came and went with no call, so I decided to put my phone on loud and try to sleep off the headache.

I woke up just as my phone was ringing off so missed the call. I checked the time and it was 3.30am!! Six hours after I had submitted the form and surely a ridiculous hour to call someone about anything. If it had gotten worse I would’ve been in hospital by that point.

I waited for half hour as they say that they’ll try calling 3 times and eventually went back to sleep at 4am with no call. This time I put my phone back on silent as I wanted to catch up on sleep and figured they weren’t calling back.

Except they did call back at 5am and 5.05am before leaving a voicemail saying they’d tried to call me 3 times to no avail and to call back if needed.

I love and appreciate the NHS system beyond belief, and I know these are tough times, but surely trying to get hold of someone at 3.30am when they needed help at 9pm is madness?

Headache is still bad so will see my GP today, but I do feel a little bit let down by the 111 system.

AIBU?

@PandorasMailbox

I fell down the stairs and my ankle looked like it was broken.

They took 8.5 hours to call me back.

Were you expecting them to diagnose a broken bone over the phone?

I put YABU as if it was that bad then you should have gone to A&E. Working in an A&E dept people who have had no luck with 111 and are that bad do often come in. Especially through the night. If you could sleep then IMO it cant have been that bad. Often times when I have worked nights its the people who are in dire pain and can't wait/sleep who come in.

I definitely would not have called 111 for your symptoms, i vehemently dislike hospitals but if it was me or my family it would be straight to A and E. We don't have 111 in NI but I assume it's the same sort of set up as an out of hours doctor?

If I had a problem that could wait til the morning I'd call my GP at 8.30am. I assume you're just a lot luckier with your surgery than me. They're amazing at routine stuff (always get me in within a week or two) but bloody awful at same day/next day appointments. I recently called them for my 2yo and then just shrugged and directed me to 111.

YABU.

It was so bad that you needed to call them yet not bad enough to answer the phone? They do work through the night you know, people still need help at 2/3am.

Call volumes are horrific and it’s not helped by the amount of time wasters.

Thanks everyone for the opinions and I do agree that I was BU sleeping through the call/putting my phone on silent. I was so lethargic and assumed they weren’t going to call back after I missed the first one - I just wanted sleep.

My GP recommended a&e and I’ve been in hospital since late this morning (only just had my phone charger dropped off to me).

They were less concerned about the headache and more the shortness of breath so have had an ECG, x ray and due more scans tomorrow morning. Dosed up on painkillers now though!

As I said in my OP, I very rarely go to hospital and in all honesty avoid it where I can so perhaps subconsciously was hoping I didn’t have to go.

In future, if I DO need to use 111 at least now I know that it might be an early morning call.

Thank you all for the advice and for those who wished me well too!

@UsernameNotAvailableApparently hope you feel better soon. 10 points for your last post. Very balanced and measured and the perfect rounding up message. Can you teach every aibu poster to provide such clear updates? Thanks

Hi OP, glad you’re getting the help you need. I work as a GP for the out-of-hours service, 111 pass some calls to us for a callback. Hoping the below goes some way to explaining your experience.

When doing a nightshift, we have to work through the night to get through all the callbacks before our service closes at 8am. As much as I’d love to take a few hours rest in the middle of the night, I can’t.

We also have to be mindful that people have called a semi-emergency service so could be really ill. Calls are steamed into target callback times depending on how urgent 111 feel they are, and these don’t change because of the time of day.

Also, when 111 refer a patient to us for a callback, they can’t see how busy we are, and at busy times, the callback time you are promised might be completely unrealistic (which is likely what happened to you).

To give you some idea, when I do a nightshift in my county, there are a grand total of 3 GP’s, and 2 nurses across the entire county to call patients back (that’s if we’re fully staffed, often we are a GP short), and on a bad night, we sometimes start the nightshift with 80-100 calls waiting.

I had a similar experience and it was so stressful and so upsetting. I can’t read the replies as it annoys me so much. It’s terribly understaffed and not fit for purpose.