111 have said they need to send an ambulance

[Anxiouspatient]

I recently had surgery and then developed a hematoma. I had the hematoma removed the day after surgery and have been feeling absolutely out of it ever since.
Today I’ve just not felt right and have felt nausea which has got worse throughout the day. I decided I needed to call 111 to see what the advice was, I expected them to say a clinician would call me back. They said they are going to send an ambulance which I was not expecting. Now I’m waiting for the ambulance which potentially could be a while. I wasn’t extremely worried before but AIBU now I really am.

They're being over cautious but surely this is better than not listening to patients? Imagine if they didn't send an ambulance and it was sepsis (as the potential in this case).

Hope you feel better soon OP x

Are calls from 111 for an ambulance prioritised ? This is strange when you hear about people dying of heart attacks and strokes while waiting for an ambulance.

No. All ambulances are given a category of urgency depending on symptoms/illness or injury.

You’re recently discharged from surgery op, I would have expected them to call an ambulance to be honest, they have to exercise caution with any questionable symptoms after surgical discharge, there’s a couple of things they have to rule out.
Hopefully you’ve been seen to by now and it’s nothing at all to worry about 🤞🏻

Thank you for the update.

I had been about to post - before seeing your update - not to make your own way to hospital as in my experience ce paramedics can often assess in the home/the stationary ambulance. (Also, in suspected cardiac cases, ECGs can be done in the a,balance en route to hospital and which are transmitted direct to the cardiac unit).

As you might be able to tell, I am a bit of a fan of paramedics!

It's a good thing. Pack what you might need. If they keep you in because you need it then that's great. If they check you over and send you home that's also great because you'll know that you just feel a normal level of post op awful. Good luck x

And yet you read (I do anyway) of people waiting many hours with e.g. broken hips.
I have to say I couldn’t fault 111 or the ambulance crew who whisked me straight off to hospital last year. They took me straight to ‘resus’ - ‘So you won’t have to wait’.
I hadn’t realised at the time, but my heart rate was in the stratosphere - maybe they thought I was likely to cark it en route! (I had pneumonia.)

you will feel much more relaxed when you’ve been check over in sure it’s over caution

if you have the means to get into hospital cancel the ambulance now someone else needs it

Glad you’ve been seen OP. Just keep an eye on your temp and go back of it does go up (or down).

111 do over the top codings frequently, I'm a paramedic was working on the road went to 4 111 jobs all cat1 coded (cat1 = either cpr in progress/not breathing, or thought to be about to not be breathing), all were discharged at scene with no treatment required. Whilst 90 year old granny fallen down full flight of stairs with broken hip will code cat3, the 50year old with sudden onset crushing chest pain feeling faint, clammy, vomiting, short of breath will code cat2. They all have to wait whilst we rush around seeing the worried well. The 111 jobs are constant and if coded cat 1 they'll take priority over the stroke, the pedestrian skittled by the car, the clearly having a heart attack, the pensioner with obvious fractures in agony. They all wait whilst we check out the anxious.

I'm sure 111 get it right more times than they get it wrong, and I'm coloured as not working in 111 I only see when they get it wrong. In 8 years there's only been one occasion where I went to a 111 job and thought they really got it right that time (subtle signs of serious illness pt would have been unable to make their own way/wouldn't have gone themselves). Yet the vast majority of jobs we goto are from 111. Even when the advise to goto A&E was quite correct they could have easily made own way far quicker - i.e. the kiddy with signs of sepsis/meningitis and parents with a car on the drive way living 10mins from hospital told they must wait for ambulance even though it's 2-4hour wait estimated.... It's insanity.

Hope you are feeling better this morning @Anxiouspatient

Both 999 and 111 have to take what people say as truth.

The problem is the symptoms of flu are very similar to more serious illnesses - so people will have chest pain often described as tightening, feel faint,dizzy, feel sick, feel muddled up, have a headache, not want to be in a bright room, have a racing heart rate (due to fever) and generally feel bloody awful.

Discriminating between one thing and another can't really be done on the phone - you need someone to look at the person and run some tests, so like appendixes you have to take out 10 or 100 that are fine to prevent one bursting and turning into peritonitis.

Oh I literally thought the only thing 111 ever did was tell people to go to A&E. Didn't know there were categories and such.

If it is something that your child gets often, you should ask your GP if you can keep some antibiotics with you just in case.

My husband does this.

It's essential a signposting service -go to A&E, goto your GP, goto a pharmacy, ambulance is coming for you.

If you had a quick response they very likely passed it as a cat1 priority i.e. that you should be treated as minutes from death. It's just something they/the system does unfortunately.

No you misunderstand - it’s an incredibly rare condition that people don’t usually get more than once. He had it two years ago with no relapse, so it appearing again yesterday was totally out of the blue and unexpected. I’ll be following up with GP for sure as there’s very few cases that I’ve found online of it occurring more than once.

A little update, I’m actually back in hospital with another hematoma. I’ll have to have another surgery to remove it. It doesn’t seem to ridiculous that they called an ambulance now.

What everyone needs to remember is 111 are only triaging over the phone by what you are telling them and that is really difficult so of course they need to be bloody cautious! Once someone can see you face to face it’s so much easier.

Oh poor you, Anxious patient! Hope you get some rest.

@Anxiouspatient sorry to hear that, best of luck with the op, hope it's the last one and you're on the road to recovery x

I think it actually perfectly highlights the inadequacy of 111.

As a Paramedic (actually one of the ones with more training than most of my colleagues) I can say that we are absolutely not qualified to assess and discharge a patient with possible post surgical complications, this is for a Dr. Yet because of 111 you got the Paramedic check up. If 111 didn't exist you'd have likely just gone to A&E, called the surgical team if they'd given you their number as an advice line, or spoken with your GP.

We/paramedics just don't know what we don't know. Will just assess you screening for obvious red flags associated with standard medical presentations i.e. looking for an appendicitis etc. We would be very unlikely to understand the surgery it terms of what normal recovery symptoms would be expected, what complications are possible and how they could present. Essentially if you're walking talking eating and drinking/going to the toilet we'll presume all is more or less ok and you're not an emergency so we're off with the advice that you should probably still see your Dr when they open. This kind of assessment/post surgical check up just isn't something we're trained for, yet we're sent anyway.

Fortunately you've obviously seen a Dr now. But I do worry many are falsely reassured/think because they've been 'checked out' thats that, but it really shouldn't be the case.

I don't know, you could be waiting up to twelve hours. If you think there's any chance you might need to be in hospital and can, I'd make your own way there.

Sorry I missed your update, all the best.

And it can be the same with GP phone call appointments IME. steps to deal with high numbers of people needing to see someone resulted in over the phone steps to keep figures down

Not that I’m glad you are back in hospital, OP, but I am sort of glad you are in the right place. I was a bit worried this morning after the paramedics had left.

As a PP says, that isn’t the paramedics fault but it would have been better if 111 had suggested A&E rather than getting an ambulance.