To go to A and E instead of phoning NHS direct?

[fernie3]

I took my little girl to the doctors today she is 8 months and has had a pretty bad cold and temp etc for about 5 days. We tried to call our out of hours doctors a few nights ago but couldnt get through so we called NHS direct who told us dont worry shes fine just give her calpol for a few days etc etc which is what we did.

well she still wasnt better today so I decided to take her to the GPs anyway. The gp told us she has quite a nasty chest infection and then told us NEVER to bother with NHS direct if we need a doctor and cant get through to the out of hours and its for a child just go straight to A and E. She said that she has seen too many children get really ill after phonecalls to NHS direct!.

So we have antibiotics etc but we have also been told hat if her temp goes up anymore we take her up to A and E straight away.

Is this reasonable - I would have felt like I was over reacting but now Im not so sure??

Nhs direct were brilliant on Thursday evening when I had to call after ds had an incident with a Karvol capsule.

I was put straight through (well after the swine flu and 'is the person breathing' stuff) to a nurse (who also had to keep calling me back because we kept having brown outs and being cut off). She called the poisons unit and told me all I needed to know about what to do.

"NHS direct is generally good, it has trained and expierienced dr's and nurses working for them.
however they do need to know everything about the ill person because they can't see them. this takes time. they also have to use thier own expierience and intuition to ask the right questions, and people have to supply the right answers, to get the appropriate care."

The people you get when you phone NHS Direct are not medically trained, they merely have a computer screen with questions in front of them which brings up new screens according to your answers. One of the things they can do is get a nurse to phone you back.

My brother used to work for them, they'd get people phoning quite regularly who were having heart attacks and needed an ambulance sending. 'Oh, if you're sure, I wouldn't want to cause a fuss'. That's why they have the 'silly' are they breathing questions.

I'd never bother with NHS Direct for a child unless it was for an absolutely mundane thing. If they were at all ill, I would make sure they actually saw a doctor. Your GP is great to be so honest about this. Most of them stick to the line that NHS Direct is useful if you're actually ill

Very positive experiences of NHS Direct here. On the one occasion it was serious (the situation deteriorated whilst I was on the phone) they sent the ambulance; for occasions when medical care has been necessary out of hours they book the appointment at the out of hours GP service, and on the MANY occasions where I was worrying unnecessarily they have been able to reassure me.
But then, I am old enough to remember when there was no out of hours, no walk-ins and no NHS Direct, and waiting times at our local A&E were up to 10 hours long...

In response to the OP - why wouldn't you want to follow the eminently sensible advice of your GP...?

I've had great advice from NHS Direct over minor things and do believe it's generally a very good service. But I wish we'd not listened to them when DD's croup was so severe (but they said stay at home) - by the time I followed my instinct and got her to hospital, the usual treatments that had worked before failed. So she ended up staying in for a couple of days and it was all scary. A&E said we should always go straight to them if it recurred.

So Fernie3 - agree with the others who say follow the advice of your GP.

I've never phoned NHS direct!

My GP told us to go to A&E and not use NHS direct. What does it say about the service if GPs are saying this? I've had a couple of good experiences with NHS direct (mostly where they set up appointments for us at hospital very quickly) but also waited over nine hours for a call-back for sick DS once. They eventually called in the middle of the night, some hours after we'd returned from a rush to A&E having decided to take matters into our own hands!

Have never had a good experience with NHS direct, always a long wait then a string of questions ending with the suggestion of a trip to a&e. We are very lucky though as we have a fab out of hours where you can speak to a nurse/doctor within minutes at any time. They also have access to Dr's notes so know what has been going on. I understand why you are asking this though as I always feel like I am being a bit dramatic (is it really an "emergency"?)

My 10 month old dd had a temp of 40.4 a few months back and like a fool I dithered about ringing nhs direct/the out of hours and ended up having to ring an ambulance as she had a convulsion. Next time I will be straight to a&e.