AIBU with my thoughts on 111?

[frustratedandtired321]

I have a daughter, she is almost 2. She suffers very badly from tonsillitis. We've been on the waiting list for an ENT for almost 4 months as she has had tonsillitis 5 times since she was a little baby. 6 including tonight. We can't afford anything private so we have to make do with the waiting list.

She also snores like you wouldn't believe and always sounds very nasal and croaky when she talks. Anyway that's the background

As kids do she on,y seems to get sick on weekends. She was really tired on Friday but first day at nursery so put it down to that. Yesterday morning she was being sick with diarrhoea. By 4 pm her throat was covered in white spots and she had tonsillitis. Rang 111 to arrange an appointment to get some antibiotics. They explained as she was under. 2 she fell into the category of a call back within 2 hours. I know there busy and she said the same so I wasn't expecting the. 2 hour deadline to be hit. I made her comfortable with a drink of ice.cold milk and alternated calpol and nurofen as I usually do.
By 10 pm I rang them back as she hadn't drunm anything and her nappies were a lot dryer and she was non stop crying since 9 pm

They explained they were incredibly busy and I probably wouldn't get a call back for at least another 2 to 3 hours and the appointment could be another 12 hours away. She asked if it would be easier for me to cancel the 111 call back and arrange to see my gp Monday morning, I declined and said I didn't feel comfortable leaving her until Monday so to leave us on the list
At midnight she stopped producing tears and her mouth was dry so I put her in the car and drove straight down to a and e.
She was seen as quick as they could and they prescribed antibiotics. She's been given fluids via a syringe in small doses and we are waiting to see if she passes urine,If not they mentioned she may need iv fluids
I suppose my question is AIBU to be a little annoyed at the 111 service? I know they're busy, I know the whole nhs is busy but I've had to go to a and e for tonsillitis which has made me feel very stupid.

I honestly despair when I think of what years of Tory Government has done to our NHS, it’s bloody criminal 😩

111 is shit and at times frankly dangerous. It was always a fudge to cover up the lack of GPs and out of hours services.

@Littleelffriend i had the same with acute appendicitus. Pre Covid. Surgeon said it was full I'd sepsis & I was incredibly lucky it hadn't burst, that if he hadn't done it when he did, it would have. 111 had wanted me to wait until the Monday & see a GP. (This was Friday).

they have been terrible re call backs & giving bad advice when people do speak to them. I don't have ANY faith in it At All.

@frustratedandtired321 that's terrible that the nurse was not just incompetent but also rude to you as well. You should complain to her head of department. In no other service sector job do people get away with treating paying customers like shit.

We are at a ward. She's still asleep and they've started her on iv antibiotics as the fluids had run out.
I'm going to email a complaint about the nurse because as people have said it's not acceptable at all.
Little one is still fast asleep but the nurses have said they'll bring her some pathing soft to eat for dinner and cold fluids
She looks exhausted
I'm on a tiny pull out bed watching greys anatomy while she sleeps.

111 is useless. Glad your daughter is on the mend x

btw we have an excellent walk in centre near us - I think more of them are needed as it’s really fantastic and takes the strain off the a and e dept plus great when you can’t get a Gp appt for
children and it’s something that needs seeing urgently.

They are useless.

I phoned them 3 months ago as my GPs weren't taking my 2yo's headaches seriously, and that's got wise with vomiting.

I didn't want to just turn up at A&E as I didn't want to be seen as 'one of those parents' but I phoned 111 hoping they'd send us up.

They didn't.

Gp finally sent us to the hospital later that day. Ct scan showed a large brain tumour which required blue lighting to a specialist hospital and emergency neurosurgery within 24hrs.

We then discovered that in refusing to refer us to the hospital both GP and 111 beige the referral guidelines. Thank goodness I pushed...

I hope your little one is feeling better soon x

The doctor that eventually prescribed my daughter antibiotics for by then raging bacterial tonsillitis said to me and I quote “ 111 is a joke: run by students reading off crib sheets.”

this was after two days of calling , waiting to be called back which never happened in two or six hour periods. The been told to ring Lloyds pharmacy for a consultation who said there was nothing they could do. Then finally been seen by a practitioner et urgent care well over 24 hours from first call who prescribed her - when I got to the hospital pharmacy - penicillin which I told him she couldn’t take. He then refused to issue an alternative and I had to go all the way back through 111 I was told. At that point and circa 50 phone calls in I demanded to speak to a 111 manager. They were useless but agreed to contact the urgent care centre. Three hours later a doctor called me and issued me an e prescription for the correct medicine and that was when he said the above. I also had to have the prescription put back on and the code pulled down from the system by the original and incredibly helpful boots pharmacist it was sent to across two other boots, stores,,two lloyds and finally a Tesco pharmacist which involved another 4 hours of waiting on bank holiday Monday then a mad dash to get it before they closed early.
just a complete farce.

We need more GPs. 111 have tried to send me to A&E before for non-emergencies, it seems to be their only answer! Then you sit in A&E for 4 hours looking at all the posters telling you you shouldn’t be there!

That's terrible. I hope your little one is better

Exactly , we were sat opposite a poster asking us if we had tried the gp, pharmacy, 111 before coming here

111 is worse than useless. It shouldn’t exist. It is just a mechanism for slowing down access to doctors - nothing more, nothing less.

Hopefully it's going to be more of a life sentence than a death sentence but checking/managing it is going to very much be the rest of her childhood.

If we'd listened to 111 then well shudder really.

I hope your DD gets well soon.

I think the whole primary care service is struggling so much. I had a horrible vasovagal syncope on Friday. I didn't actually pass out because I knew I had to get on the floor and my feet up, which I managed to do. After 5-7 minutes of laying on the floor, my DD3 brought me the BP machine and my systolic was 81, so it must have gone pretty low.

I phoned the GP surgery and she said that e-consult would be better because they didn't have 'anything' for at least 3 weeks. I accepted this. Then she said 'well you'd better tell me why you phoned'. I explained, and she said 'Oh... Well a doctor will phone you this morning because that can't wait.' The GP phoned me within an hour and asked me to attend the surgery within half an hour. If I had listened to the ramble about no appointments, I wouldn't have been seen, given an ECG and had bloods taken.

So we have a plan in place for today. The ent is coming to see her at some point. My husband came down and dropped off her favourite teddy and some clothes at the ward.
Nurses have said doctor will be coming to speak to me soon
She's woken up and had a small drink of milk. Very clingy and hoarse
But she's given me a smile and had a wee so hopefully onwards and upwards

Really good news on your update OP, hope she improves quickly.

I do think as a nation though we need to get the message across to the Government that primary care has been allowed to fall apart and it’s unacceptable.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending, I meant "don't feel stupid - you did the right thing"! I'm glad you're in the right place, and that she's feeling a bit better.

How are you getting on OP?

Sadly I'm not surprised. I waited 10 hours for a callback when my daughter had signs of appendicitis - they called at 1am (after calling them at 3pm the previous day) and I missed the call as we were asleep. We had already got ourselves off to a&e, on IV antibiotics and admitted for the night with surgery planned for the morning.

We are finally home, she's very tired and feeling very sorry for herself. But then she forgot all about the pain when she got ice cream. I'm ok. Tired and annoyed but main thing is my smiley girl is back

111 is not fit for purpose anymore. Told it was 12 hour wait for a callback about unusual rash on 10 month old last week. Not to go to a&e if he didn't have a temp. Got a call from an operator at 10 hours to say there were still 300 people in front of him and callback had been cancelled and to go to a&e or wait for GP in the morning. Luckily it was a heat rash making his eczema flare up. Could've been way worse. And for people saying go to a&e, we went with 2yo last month and the wait time was 12 hours.

Neither are fit for purpose. I get that they're busy, but this is beyond ridiculous.

I'm glad you got seen OP, my 11yo has suffered awfully with tonsillitis since she was 2, but because it improved a bit in recent years she wasn't offered a visit with ENT. Her snoring is awful, and it makes her wake up with a sore throat as it dries up during the night. I've asked for a referral after she's had tonsillitis 4 times in the past 3 months.

The system is broken. People can no longer get a GP appointment in a timely fashion so the pressure on 111 increases. I have experienced the best and the worst of 111 while DH was at home (likewise the ambulance service where a blue light ambulance took an hour to get to us as it had to come from well out of area). No wonder staff are leaving the NHS in their droves.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/06/its-shocking-senior-nurse-tells-of-acute-pressure-on-nhs-111

Have a read of this.

I'm so glad you're dd is doing better now, it was absolutely right to take her to a&e.

I have a few medical friends who work in 111, one who is a paramedic practitioner. They do their absolute best but it's simply far too under-resourced to cope. Same with the ambulance service, and the rest of the NHS.

(Tories out)

I had an occasion where 111 just didnt call back for my 17 month old... im technically still waiting and it was months ago!

I initiated contact with 111 on Saturday afternoon just after 4 pm. As said in my original post we were told it would be 2 hours callback due to her age and symptoms. I didn't expect this as I know how busy they are. They finally rang me Sunday at 11:07 am. When I explained that I'd gone to a and e almost 12 hours prior they got very shirty with me and explained I should have called them to cancel. I'm not going to vent my frustration at a single person working in a system that is clearly not working but I was and still am thinking why would I wait on hold for another 40 minutes if not longer when my priority is my child and it has been 18 hours since my first contact. To be honest thought they'd forgotten me.

On a lighter note my child who's hardly eaten for 2 days is now eating a cheese spread sandwich and yelling yummy after each bite