To think this letter is annoying and pointless?

[chegirl]

I received a letter from our local children's centre on Friday. It read:

We have been unable to contact you regarding DS3's recent visit to A&E on 13 4 09. Please contact Ms Anyone Nursery Nurse on blah blah blah. (My bolding).

Have to point out that I am absolutly fine about visits to A&E being followed up. I was expecting a call from HV. I work with vunerable children so have no problems with that part.

The things that annoy me are as follows :

They have been unable to contact me because they have NOT tried to contact me. My house is only empty for a couple of hours on one day in the week due to OH's working hours. I work very part time hours. We have voicemail on our phone and Surestart clearly have our address. The hospital have all of our contact details including our mobile numbers.

DS's visit to A&E was not what I call recent in child protection terms. If the purpose of these follow ups is for CP, leaving it for nearly two months is hardly best practice IMO

Not so much annoyed but puzzled - why am I being contacted by a Nursery Nurse? No disrespect to any NNs out there but would a HV or SW not be more appropriate?

I have to say the thing that annoys me most is the way they have sent a standard, preprinted letter (our names biro'ed in) that suggests we have not been answering their calls and/or are being obstructive.

I know its not a huge issue given what is going on in the world but I think its a box ticking exercise and/or someone clearing up their caseload before going on leave.

I called them on Tuesday morning and have not had a reply yet.

I wont say I am fuming or even furious but I am mildly miffed.

That date should have been 13.3.09 DOH!

chegirl they are covering their ar**es and I agree with you what is a nursery nurse going to do and know and if they were that worried they should have made more concerted efforts to see you asap

where I used to live the nursery nurse was the HV's assistant, sat in on some clinic appointments and would go out and fill in questionnaires for referrals, so maybe that's why it's a nursery nurse coming. YAB a little bit U - yes the standard letter is a bit shitty, but then they always are aren't they?

YABU. I'm guessing from the way you have been dealt with you are low risk. They are overworked. The Nursery Nurse probably deals with the lower risk ones and sends a letter after a phone call unanswered - and probably follows it up in a few weeks. A&E slips take a while to get from the hospitals to the HV teams, and low risk ones come last. They also rarely have any contact information on - just the childs name and DOB and often the wrong address.

At least you had some kind of contact. We've been hospitilised with DS1 twice in his 3 years and never had a phone call or letter from our health team

You are right total standard letters are a bit crap (which is why I never use them) but why include the 'we have not been able to contact you' bit.

If they are going to send a SL why not just 'we are contacting you about' ?

At least that way it would be true. I dont like official letters that fib

But my point is Nat that the call has not been unanswered. We are always in. So unless they happened to call at the exact time that my OH goes to work whilst I am out (which happens once a week)they havent exactly tried to contact me.

I'd be very irritated at the 'we have not been able to contact you' when it is patently untrue. The fact that they are busy is no excuse for telling lies.

Lies which could potentially lead to real damage, now the govt. is setting up this massive Contactpoint database of all children in the country - a claim that you haven't responded to their query could be recorded on the system and make it look as if you are bad parents. Take your child to A&E after any other routine accidents (for children) and you could get another flag...

I think it's something to do with the NHS and arse-covering. A friend of mine has had atrocious treatment, and I was with her at a case conference to sort it all out last week. One NHS staff member actually muttered about there having been DNAs. Not being up to speed with jargon, I didn't realise till too late that this cunt professional was claiming that appointments had been made for my friend which she had not attended! How the hell are things to move on when so-called professionals tell blatant lies about patients - in front of said patient?!

(Fortunately, my friend's daughter was also there and picked up on the point, but nevertheless ...)

Fair enough - but it is possible they tried when you were a) out or b) on the phone.

or maybe your phone number was wrong somewhere.

Or it could be genuine error and in a long list to phone they thought they had tried you.

or yes, it could just be lazyness

Not sure how it works where you are, but in our area we receive A&E forms in batches, usually 3-4 weekly. It can be another 2-3 weeks until we have time to process them, especially if they come in during a school holiday.

We only get a copy of the A&E form which only has name, DOB and address. No telephone numbers. If we then need to follow them up we use the contact details we hold, which may be out of date and rarely has mobile numbers, especially as people change them regularly.

The forms that are flagged up with a cause for concern get sent individually and are actioned ASAP.

I think YANBU to be cheesed off but just wanted to explain how difficult it can be to follow some of these things up!

edam this has crossed my mind. I have been involved with families involved with SS. This could be bought up in a review.

Regardless, if its not true, dont say it.

The time it has taken to get to me is a worry. Of course they are overworked if they are required to chase up every under five vist to A&E. How on earth was that ever going to work? The case load must be huge.

If it takes two months to get to me, its not working. How do they know I am low risk if there is very little infomation on the A&E slip. The ones I used to send to GPS were full copies of the A&E record BTW.

Thank you for explaining that Sidge
I wasnt sure how it worked but guessed as much.

I was a med sec in the 80s and I was informed one morning that I had to photocopy every under five visit and send to their GP . Totally understood the reasoning behind it but absolutly no way on earth I was able to do it efficiently.

The other issue is leaving messages on answer machines. It seems a bit over the top, but where I work, I wouldn't leave messages on a machine which has an automatic message - I don't know for certain that I have the correct number, and if I say " hello, this is a message for ... my name is Stanausaurus from ... dept" there is a potential for breaching patient confidentiality. (I appreciate it's a bit different for children though)

I dont know if its the same everywhere, but here is similar to Sidge.

Low risk basically means not CIN, not CP, not more than 1 A&E visit in 6(?) months, and no flag by the A&E doctors.

Someone central I think deams the high risk ones before they even get to the HV Teams.

Right, I have reviewed the situation given the information provided.

Not annoyed at sure start staff for taking ages to contact me (think the system is crap though)

Now think I understand why Nursery Nurse has contacted us

Still annoyed at suggestion that I have been hard to get hold of.

Thank you

And I dont think you are allowed to leave any more than "Can you please contact xxx on xxx" on an answerphone - not even childs names, so I'm guessing most just hang up and (should) try again later.

My bloody broadband keeps cutting out .

oldladyknows its horrible when that happens. I have seen it happen in a number of reviews I have been part of. It is potentially very harmful. I hope you have managed to sort things out for your friend.

Anyway, I have left them a message asking them to call me and leaving numbers etc. So we shall see what happens. I did query politely when they had tried to get hold of me as I didnt believe them was concerned that they were have difficulties.

I agree with stanasaurus - unless an answerphone includes the people's names I rarely leave any message as I can't be sure I have the correct number (that includes mobiles messaging services).

Don't take it personally that they wrote you are hard to get hold of - I often have to write to parents I can't contact by phone and write "I am writing as I have been unable to contact you by phone". If you do get hold of someone check they have the correct numbers for you

chegirl, there's another review in a few weeks - we're keeping notes. But not bearing grudges.

Its always best to keep notes. I always did.I kept every single piece of paper connected to my DS's case.

I dont want to sound anti social worker because I really am not. I am pretty anti the system though because of what it did to my DS.

I dont know if your friend case is anything to do with her children but if it is I would recommend contacting Family Rights Group for support.

If it has nothing to do with kids, ignore me

It's not to do with her kids, but thanks anyway.