Child suffering - no doctor's appointments

[cofingalthetime]

So a friend's little boy aged 3 had a cold that hasn't gotten better - he has a chesty cough, and his eyes are very very sore with green gunk - obviously conjunctivitis. She just cannot get a doctor's appointment. Last night she rang 111 and they said they would send an ambulance, but it would take 6 hours so she took him to A&E but after 5 hours, without even seeing a triage nurse, she brought him home again. On the phone to the doc again this morning, and no appointments. I've just seen the little boy - he's totally listless lying on the sofa, his eyes glued together, breathing sounds awful and his cough is terrible. He just needs some antibiotics? She tried the pharmacist but he would only give her a cough medicine. My friend herself sounds terrible, with an awful cough and she looks terrible, I think she has a chest infection. This must be being duplicated across the whole country - I can imagine people ending up in hospital with pneumonia because they couldnt see a doctor. What should she do... I said maybe go to the surgery with the child so they can see how sick he is...?

Are you a qualified doctor? If not do not prescribe antibiotics as a standard given you aren't qualified to make that judgement. It could be a viral infection.

Chloramphenical Eyedrops can be bought over the counter at Boots chemist. A sufficiently sticky, itchy, red eye would allow the pharmacist to sell them to you. In the interim, bathe eyes with warm clean water and a pinch of salt in it.

If a child is poorly use a walk centre if no GP available or go into GP surgery and stage a sit in. They will undoubtably see a child. Don't be fobbed off.

If the child is listless they must be seen by a professional in any case. If parent very worried, they should have prepared for the wait in A&E, blanket, drinks, snacks, carrier for child. The A&E staff there will recognise if a child needs immediate attention.

I was in Paeds A&E recently with my DD. Some kids were there for more than 9 hours before being triaged. There was then a long wait to see a Dr. There were 4 nurses and 1 doctor for 35 kids. The hospital declared an incident over this period and blamed a bronchiolitis outbreak.

Dis he come on his horse? 🙄🙄🙄

Erm that may have been the case years ago. And I will always take a parents "feelings" I to consideration. But I see 100's of children a month whose parents "don't feel right". And 99.99% of them are wrong.....

When weighing up what to do about one of my babies, the GP set everything aside for a moment and said "What is mother's intuition telling you? Sometimes mothers have extra knowledge about the condition."

I stated my position and he carefully factored that in to the other factors he was weighing up. That was very recently and he was early thirties.

I'm not saying you were wrong. But I am saying that not every parent is right. In the 20 yrs I have been a GP the numbers of worried parents has sky rocketing making this oft told "fact" now nonsensical. If we admitted even 1% of the children we see because of parental instinct secondary care would collapse in hours. Some days I feel like doing just that.

I know GPs like this today.

However that's not to say it's a regular thing.

You know GPs who make impromptu house calls to viral children at 2am?? No you don't
I have been known to call a patient I am concerned about to follow up or inform them of blood results etc but I don't know a single GP who would do an impromptu house call at 2am. Not since OOH was removed from the contract in 2004....and even then it would have been very unusual.
Are you sure you aren't thinking of the TV soap doctors ....

I said to take him back to a&e this morning but she said it's not fair on the kid, he is too sick.

That makes zero sense. Only people who are not too sick should be in A&E? This is precisely the people who should be in A&E, those who are ‘too sick’.

I think there's some seriously dangerous things going on - a baby with a heart condition who was turning blue was left sit for over 4 hours?

Do you not have a walk around every 30mins or so? Before I left, we’d had a policy for years where a triage nurse would have a quick wander around the waiting room every 30min just doing a visual assessment to check no one had dangerously deteriorated since initial triage and if so the list adjusted accordingly. They generally don’t stop and chat unless they have a specific question, so you may not know what they are doing. To have a patient die in the waiting room involves a truck tonne of paperwork, endless meetings and time, so it’s well worth giving up a pair of hands you don’t have to do this periodically and I thought it was pretty much universal these days.

And having seen the program this week,and hearing in the news of a dozen sackings already because of the proven abuse of mental health patients ,I can beleive every horrid story. In fact that bullshit its been like this for years in mental health services.
so it does start to grate now how “normal” folk are suffering lack of help and we are all now up in arms.

Child has been sick for 2 weeks yet its taking this long to go a&e then she leaves. That isn't the GPS fault. And she might have had a lengthy wait it wouldn't of been 24 hours tho not in a children's hospital.

That's what happened when I went
Triage came out to get the next person and called me in instead as she said I was grey. I was, with pain!

If financially possible, the livi app is useful for making a phone video appointment with a doctor, often within the hour, don’t have to leave the house. I used it a few times when it’s something like needing a prescription for the kids as they can send it direct to your local pharmacy. Last time I used it, it cost 20 for an appointment.
hope the child gets treated and makes a recovery soon .

Six years ago a gp made an impromptu house call to give my then 4mo steroids. It was 45 minutes from the local A and E and 2 hours to place with paediatric ward. He said he was uncomfortable having children who were struggling to breathe in car seats as it can exacerbate difficulties. So it does happen.

@Creameggs223 it’s completely the fault of the lack of access. Can’t blame the GPs either as just not physically enough of them. It’s just the basic lack of healthcare at every step in the U.K.

I am just fuming about it. We have lost the only nhs dentist in our town and no one else is taking any nhs patients. So we have thousands of people without a dentist.
the GPs are impossible to get to. You can’t get through reception. keep calling at stupid o clock for hundreds of times to be told all the appointments are taken and can’t prebook anything.
A&E have over 9 hrs waiting. who the hell can wait for 9 hrs in pain and with fever.

absolutely disgusting.

Yes there is a nhs issue but am referring to this case a mum who has done nothing but try a gp for 2 weeks when her child is sick then blames nhs for child suffering!! No the child is suffering because mother give up waiting to be seen and had she of waited then the issue would off been sorted alot sooner, you can't say your child is to sick to wait in a&e if they are sick and you no they need some sort of treatment you wait!!

No - Not years ago. 1 year ago to be exact. And yes - I knew he wasn't right. The fact that he has lost his colour and was looking"grey" (evident in the photos that we had of him over the past few days), that he has pronounced chest breathing, was very sleepy/heard to wake and wasn't taking any milk, but we were told that he was ok was when they shone be a light in his eyes he responded. I knew he wasn't. If I had taken my baby hinge that night I dread to think what would have happened his sats were so low.

No - I don't take my child to the GP or A&E for everything. I try to self medicate first - I also realise that for viral infections there is not a lot you can do except rest and keep hydrated. And I'm not one to push for antibiotics. Indeed, when my baby had COVID at 4 months old I wasn't at panic stations,I just assessed the situation and although he was unwell he was coping fine. BUT - when I know they are not ok and it feels scary (yes - you do get that feeling when you know that something is dangerously not ok) then I will push to get my child the treatment they need.

No one is blaming health care professionals for being understaffed - we know that they are trying their best with limited resources. It is a failure of successive governments that we have ended up like this. But - this does mean that sometimes we have to advocate for others when we "know" that it is more serious.

Noone is saying that parents never know that their child is ill, just that the "parents always know best" isn't true. If it were, every single child that is taken to a GP would have some sort of prescription or treatment. Whilst I don't know the figures (do any gps or practice staff have figures for that?), I do know that isn't the case. A massive number of people take their children to a doctor sure that they need medical treatment, and don't.

I think its utterly ridiculous that parents are vilified for taking their children to the doctors.
If you child is unwell we are programmed to try and manage at home for as long as possible.

Why should parents have the pressure of deciding whether its a cold, viral or an infection. Why should we feel ashamed or embarrassed by taking them to the doctors to get our children checked out.

Literally as parents we should be protecting our children which also means taking them to a doctor when they are unwell.

I was so guilty for it, we waited 6 days when my daughter had bacterial meningitis, I knew something wasn't right, we had taken her to the doctors on day 3 and told it was viral....I should have picked her up and walked into A&E right then and there.

The NHS is not broken by the public.

Doctors would rather see these children if their parents have a genuine concern.

We have a broken third world system if a sick child has to wait nine hours to be seen in an emergency department of all places. Of course there will be many parents unable to take this time away from home and work commitments every time their child needs medical attention.

The specific time wasn't mentioned in that post. Yes there are GPs who stop off occasionally with someone they're worried about on their way home. Where I live. Sorry if that makes you feel inadequate.

Absolutely.

But it still doesn't follow that parents always know when their kids are ill.

Are you 12? 🤣🤣