Don't Call An Ambulance

[NeverDropYourMooncup]

After yet another thread where a poster has described symptoms that are red flags for cardiac events and YET ANOTHER poster has told them they're an expert and it'll be nothing - which it very well could be, but it might not - I'm beginning to think that it wouldn't be overreacting for MN to add 'Giving dangerous medical advice that could result in harm to a poster or family member' as a reason for banning posters.

I'm aware that this could be deemed a TAAT, but it's a serious matter that isn't confined to just one single occurrence. And I'll likely get mullered on here by the people who are so absolutely certain of their psychic abilities that they can't comprehend that their 'no, that symptom that is indicative of a heart attack/stroke/sepsis/cancer is just anxiety/menopause/a cold/need of moisturiser/a paracetamol' could lead to an unnecessary death or disability.

I think it's important enough to take any flak. MN can achieve great things, but can also be outright dangerous whilst it's seen as acceptable to do this.

If I'm coming on too strong here (obviously, I don't think I am), could MNHQ consider having a standard reply as they do for depression/self harm, don't offer money to sad stories or suchlike and have one for symptoms of chest pain, one for burns, etc?

I do wonder what mumsnet could really do though. Say if they verified with NMC PIn-I guarantee I STILL would not be giving medical advice because it is beyond my sphere of competence and possibly a dangerous way to go-if a member is verified as a profession and then gives terrible or dangerous advice, then what?
What is more helpful-and is what has happened-is members reinforcing the need to get medical attention as the more people say it, the more likely the lone post falls into abeyance.

MN isn’t a medical advice forum. Anyone posting looking for medical advice is looking in the wrong place. Chat forums and factual medical advice websites shouldn’t mix. They’re totally different things and users need to be crystal clear about what is fact and what is opinion.

if a member is verified as a profession and then gives terrible or dangerous advice, then what?

Then they risk their registration. Quite rightly.

You can always pick the genuine HCPs on such threads. They are the ones who do not confidently offer diagnoses.

I know what you mean. I remember a pregnant woman posting that she felt unwell, couldn’t get out of bed, had nothing to drink and was alone. People told her she was unreasonable to call an ambulance. This was a potentially life threatening situation. Might not have been, but could have been and no one on the internet should be telling her not to make a fuss.

@OhLittleBoreOfWhabylon

if a member is verified as a profession and then gives terrible or dangerous advice, then what?

Then they risk their registration. Quite rightly.

You can always pick the genuine HCPs on such threads. They are the ones who do not confidently offer diagnoses.

I am not sure if I know of any NMC cases raised by non employment errors. I of course agree that poor practise should be held to account, but for precisely this reason, registered professionals will not offer a diagnosis on a forum. So we are kind of back where we started!

Im not in the UK but I did used to live there and I found that a lot of people were very odd about ambulances. It was as if calling an ambulance was viewed as selfish and silly.

Seemed totally bizarre to me.

It used to be only a GP could call an ambulance. Older people grew up with that, so to them calling an ambulance is a huge deal.

When to call 999 - the list includes chest pain.

www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/urgent-and-emergency-care-services/when-to-call-999/

Thing is, there's a big problem with people who call ambulances for stupid reasons (e.g. needing a light bulb changed,according to someone I once knew who worked the phones) but they'll do that no matter what. Meanwhile lots of the genuinely Ill people are going 'I really shouldn't bother them' while gasping for breath or having a heart attack and they are easily guilt tripped into not calling. There should be a 'better safe than sorry' message, but I don't see it happening while ambulance services are as stretched as they currently are.

@RoyalFamilyFan

It used to be only a GP could call an ambulance. Older people grew up with that, so to them calling an ambulance is a huge deal.

Possibly 70+ years ago. But not for the lifetime of the vast majority of MN posters? I don't think MN is a site full of octogenarians eager to stop people from accessing urgent medical care.

Older people grew up with that, so to them calling an ambulance is a huge deal.

I've called an ambulance on a few occasions, they were all big deals.

Too right NeverDrop, I read the post you mean and was horrified at such dangerous advice

@Sideswiped

YANBU. The ever-righteous posters who proclaim you should never call an ambulance except in the case of your head being amputated should give their heads a shake. I often wonder if they've ever been in the awful situation of fearing for someone else's life as their responses suggest not - I suspect that if they were, they'd be the first on the phone to dial 999. According to them, even if a small child is seriously ill, you should bundle them into a car and take them, on your own, to A&E, regardless of your worry that something terrible might happen on the way. (And of course they possess a crystal ball to forecast the outcome, meanwhile having fuck all knowledge or expertise in the area concerned.)

I agree with this. This was on a different forum to mumsnet, but if I followed the advice given on there during an emergency then my daughter would 100% be dead. And the other forum is nowhere near as bad as mn when it comes to medical advice. Half of the comments were from people saying I shouldn’t be going to hospital at all. When I was there the rest of them were saying that I 100% should be listening to the multiple MEDICAL EXPERTS with their SCIENTIFIC PROOF of my daughters diagnosis, which I completely disagreed with. I refused to let them carry out the procedure that would have killed her, and she was less than 24 hours from death before she was correctly diagnosed by a nurse who helped me get her the treatment which saved her life. I feel like stabbing people in the throat when they comment ‘if you’re posting on here then it’s not an emergency and you don’t need a&e’ 😡😡

@Angrymum22

Anyone who turns to mums et for health advice before consulting GP or seeking advise from 111 is a little misguided from the outset.

This.

111 is there if you're not sure.

Social media is for checking in once you get there

@NeverDropYourMoonCup no not that long ago at all.
It was only in the 70s that ambulances started to have paramedics. Before that they were a taxi service.

I agree; there's a lot of worrying advice given in response to posts about medical situations and in an emergency scenario, something could go horribly wrong if the wrong advice was acted upon. @MNHQ posting a standard response on medical advice threads would require them to be made aware of any such thread which is all well and good during the day but less easy at night.

I'm involved with a different online forum and a few years ago, after yet another person posted photos of a rash and wanted randomers online to diagnose, we took the decision to stop publishing any posts seeking medical advice. Because of that decision we had to change the set-up of the entire forum but it's been worth it to know that no-one will be told to shove something soft in the mouth of an epileptic having a seizure, to rub oil into a burn or that it can't be meningitis because there's no non-blanching rash. We still get complaints about it, even though the person who posts will receive a message explaining that medical advice needs to be sought from qualified medics e.g. pharmacist, health visitor, GP, 111 or 999. People still complain that they only wanted to know if anyone else's cool child had had before bothering anyone medical and that they don't actually want medical advice. It often feels as though the advertising campaigns about only calling ambulances if necessary have been so successful that people worry their medical emergency isn't enough of an emergency. There's a confidence thing behind that, I'm sure. If I was worried about what felt like a medical emergency, I would call 999 or go to A&E and be completely prepared to be told that it needs to be managed in X way. I wouldn't berate myself if it turned out not to be a medical emergency but I know other people who would find that hard to cope with and so want to be right before seeking that advice. On more than occasion I've collected a parent and child from their home and driven them to hospital because the parent didn't have the confidence to make that call and even if agreeing to go only to humour me, didn't have transport/money for transport. Each time, the parent has been told by A&E that getting to hospital was the right thing to do because they were dangerously dehydrated or needed antibiotics for developing sepsis. It's concerning to think that if those parents had posted on an online forum and received advice telling them that a sudden lowering in temperature accompanied by no urine output was nothing to worry about, their child may not have received antibiotics in time to save their life.

Attached images show the signs and symptoms of sepsis.

While I completely understand @SE13Mummy's stance, I do feel there is some merit in having the threads on a forum like MN - one poster has already pointed out that she took notice of info from a thread to go to A&E when she had the same symptoms, and turned out to have sepsis.

I have used it before, despite having some HCP background, when I got something stuck in my eye in the middle of the night - I was going to leave it but was advised to go to hospital (which I did, but I drove myself)

111 isn't always great in speed of response - I know myself, I used it for my grandfather years ago, when he was in great pain. It took them forever to call back, by which time he was almost crying with pain, and they were trying to insist that they had to talk to him directly - EVENTUALLY they sent an ambulance. He died a few days later in hospital from a perforated gallbladder and further complications.

So I can understand why people post on here - they may think that it's trivial, and there is a wealth of personal experience on here that can be tapped to show that it is/isn't; but I TOTALLY agree with the OP that there should be a standard MN caveat attached to ANY medical-type post.

Sometimes you just can't wait. I took my 3yo to hospital with strange symptoms, despite having called the GP, having seen him the day before as well - because I couldn't wait for him to call back. Good job I did - the child had appendicitis with a black and gangrenous appendix which was removed first thing the next morning.

I remember another poster who had a DVT - she posted quite casually to start with but enough people warned her what it could be, and how dangerous it could be, so she went to hospital and sure enough, it was a DVT.

Ectopic pregnancies - another example of people who have been helped on here.

But again, I totally agree that the "Do Not Call An Ambulance" crew should really keep quiet. There are far too many "I don't want to be a bother" people out there who would take that as the only comment worth paying attention to, despite 99 other comments telling them it was potentially very serious and they should go to hospital - and that could potentially be fatal for them.

Agreed that genuine medical professionals shouldn't/wouldn't be posting definitive advice either, and I'm sure they don't - so if someone claims to be one, and is doing precisely that, then chances are they aren't genuine. The only medical advice they would offer safely is "get seen by a medical professional" - which may involve an ambulance!

My own sister called me from the other side of the world to see whether she should call an ambulance for our father - the answer was "Yes". I expect if she'd called 111 they would have told her the same, but maybe not, and maybe there would have been hours of delay while they got a HCP to call back and check symptoms. (To be fair, I haven't used the system for years, so I don't know who answers now - it used to be screening call handlers who had a procedure to follow, including "I'll get a nurse to call you back" who then might say "I'll get a doctor to call you back" - hours)

It can be difficult to know when to call an ambulance. There is real no public education about this.

What I don’t understand is why people feel the need to comment on things they have no bloody idea about. I’ve been on a few threads where the only appropriate response was get to A&E. There was a recent one where a pregnancy lady had PROM and she was told off for contacting the hospital (who quite obviously wanted to see her for assessment).

@NeverDropYourMoonCup I just checked and it was in 1974 that everyone was able to phone for an ambulance themselves. But I had wrongly thought it was the same everywhere when it was not. Before 1974 local authorities managed ambulances and each had different policies.
I know in the area I am from that you had to phone the GP who if they agreed would phone an ambulance for you. You could not phone for one yourself. My parents won't phone for an ambulance themselves for anything really, but they have phoned me and I have phoned for one. I know as a child I was very ill and the GP refused to phone for an ambulance,. I stayed at home. The GP visited me at home finally three days later and was shocked at how ill I was, I was apparently way better than I had been. The GP admitted I should have been in hospital. I only mention all this because that history do influence elderly people and whether they will call ambulance.

Vast majority of time. When the OP (in general) then takes the advice and calls 111 doesn't go to A&E anyway. There's usually a reason they can't/ don't want to. Maybe it's more people responding assuming low risk if you can hum and haw over the internet for several hours, and then never go anyway.

@Skiptheheartsandflowers

Thing is, there's a big problem with people who call ambulances for stupid reasons (e.g. needing a light bulb changed,according to someone I once knew who worked the phones) but they'll do that no matter what. Meanwhile lots of the genuinely Ill people are going 'I really shouldn't bother them' while gasping for breath or having a heart attack and they are easily guilt tripped into not calling. There should be a 'better safe than sorry' message, but I don't see it happening while ambulance services are as stretched as they currently are.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

The idiots who abuse the ambulance service are going to continue doing that no matter what. Most normal people need to hear the message that it's ok to call an ambulance if they are genuinely concerned.

Most who abuse services either have mental health issues, or social care issues or are simply dicks.
So changing a light bulb. For someone elderly with no one at all to help, having a dark room without a light is dangerous. I can see how someone in desperation would phone for help if they have no one else.

@pluggee

Yes it's a weird phenomenon on MNs that you shouldn't call an ambulance unless you are already dead 🤷🏻‍♀️

They've probably been scolded and minimised in life to believe they don't matter, that anyone making a fuss about injury or an illness needs to walk it off or are seeking attention.