auntypurple, i am glad that your DN is now getting the medication she needs and is hopefully now on the mind. I agree with you, totally disgusting that you couldn't get a doctor out to a SIX YEAR OLD GIRL! I imagine going out in the cold did her ear the world of good . I hope your sister is feeling better too.
looby, i do agree with you to a certain degree, about getting people in to see the doctor if at all possible. But i really do have some serious issues witn the triage system. I have had occasion to need a doctor/medical advice out of hours. The system where we works goes like this - first of all you get a non medically trained receptionist who asks some specific questions, she then decides what will happen next - you either get a visit, or you come into surgery, or you have to wait for a nurse advisor to call you back. I have in the past waited for over an hour for that call (bearing in mind i was reporting a rash and temperature in a 10m old), then had to wait after that call for a doctor to call me back, about three hours later i arrive at the surgery where it takes me ten minutes to be seen. But to get past the dragons at the portal as it were, you have to be quite insistent and articulate. I am not a doctor and i did not know if my DDs rash was serious. I was 90% certain it wasn't, but I AM NOT A DOCTOR. The nurse could not see through my telephone line to look at my DDs rash - she did her utmost to put me off. When i spoke to the doctor, she asked me if i was worried, and i was honest and said, im not desperately worried no, but im not comfortable to leave it either - Fine, she said - come on over. We were seen straight away, no waiting, out of there in less then ten minutes. So WHY did i have to fight so hard and wait so long? Clearly the fault here is not with the GPs, it is with the system and the fact that i reckon that the receptionists and nurses are pretty much told not to let people come or arrange visits unless they are at deaths door. I used to be a veterinary receptionist and have often had to put people off when they ring - why? Because the vet is late for golf!! I know this isnt quite the same, but i think i would be quite niave to think this doesn't happen in private practice. One of my friends is a doctor and i have to say that she was my reason for making the comment about GPs being generally lazy and resentful about out of hours calls. Her attitude is that everyone is taking the piss by even daring to want ten minutes of her time.
I really think this system is not working, i know that thre has to be an element of triage, else people would just be turning up for minor things that can wait. As to the OP, i agree that had it just been a case that the DD felt too poorly to come then she could be (and was in the end) taken in. But surely her mum's condition and the fact that she had other ill children must be taken into consideration. What if she actually couldnt get anyone to help? She would have either had to shell out for a taxi or relied on public transport.
This was exactly the same when i tried to get a home visit for my mother, i was trying to avoid taking an ambulance, she was potentially having an addisons crisis and needed IV steroids, as it turned out she needed hospitalising, so i probably should have just called an ambulance. But sometimes we can get away with a doctor coming out and injecting. What infuriated me was the receptionists attitude, because it was late in the day (i had only just found my mother in said state) it was like i was taking the piss, "why have you left it until this time to ring" is what i was asked?? . It was like the woman was going to arrange a visit over her dead body (she is lucky that it wasn't over my mothers in the end), and insisted on my mother being taken to the surgery. When i made the phone call my mother was coherent, able to dress herself and get to the car when DP got there an hour later. By the time we got her to the surgery, waited an hour to be seen (despite getting bollocked from the receptionist for keeping the doctor waiting -????) My mother had to collapse and had to go straight to hospital - i can't help but wonder, if i could have secured a home visit, if the injection would have been enough and she could have avoided an overnight stay in hospital that was overstretched in the first place.
I also worry that because people can't get visits or OOH appointments they are just going to A&E when they don't need to.
THe OOH system is certainly not without its flaws, gaping fucking big ones!