111 should be SHUT DOWN

[MrsMaisel]

Much as I hate to link the daily mail - here’s a horrifying look at the ‘training’ call handlers receive
never use 111

I had a lovely lady a couple of weeks ago who basically circumnavigated the algorithm by saying 'I have to recommend you call your GO surgery for advice as it is before 6pm (it was about quarter to!) but if you refuse to do that (with strong emphasis!) then I can have a clinician call you back straight away.. a lovely nurse then called me back!

I did try and call for advice when my MIL hurt her back at ours (many counties away from her home) so badly she was but because I didn't know her doctors address and didn't want to wake her to ask they wouldn't give me any advice. I only wanted to know what service might be able to help us!

I phoned them when having a panic attack due to anxiety and they told me I was having a heart attack. That really helped my anxiety

To be fair you could've been,they couldn't see you down the phone. The symptoms are similar that's why panic attacks are so scary.

They've been ok on the few occasions I've used them.

I'm in England and have found 111 really useful as a first time mum. They basically just triage and try to signpost appropriately. They're clearly using a script but they go and ask someone medically trained if they're unsure and a few times have had a doctor ring me back.

They have three answers to everything: Stay home with no treatment, go to A&E, or they send you to a walk in centre. Well I have the first two options without calling them! So basically all they are is a posh booking system for walk in centres.

It's just a very long winded way of getting an out of hours appointment. When I call it's usually me or ds having asthma issues. All I need is steroids, but I call 111, then a doc calls me back, Tells me to go to ooh, where we are always "urgent" but still have to wait hours, to be checked and given a prescription. To be honest ds has been admitted a few times...

The thing that frustrated me is being given an "appointment time" for ooh, but then being told it's an "arrival time" and I'll be seen within 4 hours. Just give me a later arrival time!

my mum has heart problems, I've called them once for her.

not with chest pain I should add!

they were good, sent ambulance within about an hour which was good service really for the situation. Ambulance people, as ever IME, were fab and had lots of kit to show that mum's problem wasn't her heart on this occasion. She's 80, it was good speedy reassuring service.

I've found them invaluable. DD2 had meningitis ( found her fitting) and they kept me calm until ambulance arrived. Also great when looking for advice for terminallyil sister. In Scotland.

Shocking behaviour aside, I'm actually quite concerned that the "whistleblower" has called out a visually impaired person and a homeless pregnant woman as if they can't have that job.

I've used 111 twice and had a perfectly good experience.

Pavlova that was my first thought too

My child , living away for the first time, was told they were suffering from flu. It was fairly clearly a wound infection when we rescued them.

It is just such a potentially dangerous system for the slightly naive or unwary. We had a lucky escape.

I've used NHS24 (Scotland) a couple of times and found it v good. Both times I was called back by a nurse practioner after my initial call and in one case an appointment made for me at the out of hours service at the hospital (middle of the night). I'm not sure it's run the same as the English service though.

Work for 111 too. The call centre I work at is definitely not like the one shown in the daily mail....far from it. All centres are different and we have different ways of doing things.

During the day theres not much we can do. Your gp surgery is open so we tell you to go there or to a walk in centre. What do you actually want us to do during the day?
It’s an advice line over the phone, you can either take the advice or not. You don’t have to accept the ambulance if you don’t want to. What I don’t understand is when people have been told by a doctor or a hcp what to do beforehand. So many people have said the a&e doctor has told me to come back if I have these symptoms. Then why are they even calling 111. Why aren’t they taking their advice. A clinician is a trained paramedic or a nurse. The reason why call back times are soo long is because hundreds are calling every day and they need to priorities those with life threatening symptoms. The clinical queue can be very long, you can’t expect them to call within 5 mins. That lady who suspected her husband had dvt.....If you knew it was that serious then why didn’t you go to a&e straight away? Also the out of hours doctors are nothing to do with 111, so don’t blame us. We only send referrals to the ooh.

. You'd hope that 111 would have more sense than to spend ages asking questions when the primary complaint is chest pain.
We don’t write the questions and we don’t know how many questions there are going to be. The answer before determines the next questions. We have to answer all questions no matter how irrelevant they sound.
At the end of the day we can’t see what’s going on over the phone and if you think there’s something clearly wrong you should be going to the hospital. Don’t blame 111 when you knew it could be something serious. We also have to deal with lots of people that shouldn’t be calling 111, like suicidal callers etc. We have repeat callers that call every single day for no reason when we could be helping someone else, The abuse that we get from people because we won’t send them an ambulance or because we won’t do an assessment in a moving vehicle. It’s a harder job than what most people realise. There’s so much more to the job but we’ll be here all day discussing.
And the person who said we shouldn’t be discussing calls to people well you’re wrong. It’s good to let people know the kind of job we do. As long as you’re not giving out any names what’s the problem.

Completely pointless.
I don’t know why anyone would call 111 when it’s quicker to just Google.

They've been fantastic every time I've used them.
I do wonder what some people expect from them given they can't see you and can only ask questions.
Maybe the Welsh version is different though as you usually get put through to a nurse after the initial questions.

The article is classic Daily Mail 'one woman was homeless and five months pregnant' terrible how dare she try and earn a living

butterflycookie I have been advised in the past to call 111 if I was feeling suicidal. If someone was actively suicidal, yet still desperate for help I would hazard a guess that they are far more likely to call 111 than 999 as they don't want to bother anyone, and it never seems 'bad enough' to warrant calling 999

I have never had a problem with 111. In fact I'd recommend them.

butterfly you do a brilliant job and people are never happy anyway. As you said they call wanting advice but then argue against it and huff and puff because your asking questions that seem pointless to them but they have no clue really. God help us if they take away the 111 service especially in Scotland because then they will really be fucked!

throw sadly now because of Tory cuts the only place for people with mental health problems is a&e. It’s a disgrace

They saved my life - was home post op, within seconds of calling them with breathlessness and heart palpitations they had an ambulance on its way to me (which arrived very quickly). I had a very serious pulmonary embolism.

I just want to second pp who explained the 111 process
I too am a nurse now working for 111 & my training was intense & many dropped out due to failing exams or finding the course too hard
It’s honestly one of the hardest jobd i’ve done in over 30 years of nursing & those who criticise are often misunderstanding the whole point of the service!

Used 111 many times in England, never had a problem.

I’ve called them several times in the last year. They’ve been outstanding every time. We’ve been passed onto doctors when the operator wasn’t sure about something.

In Scotland, absolutely great service I'm very grateful for with 2DC and a relative with ms who can deteriorate very quickly when unwell.

These type of articles really make me mad. I work for 111 and it truly is an amazing service which saves lives on every minute of every day.

The training I went through to be a call handler was the most intense thing I have ever been through. Two interviews and online assessments to start. Then Two weeks of classroom based work and role play leading to both writing and audit exams. Then consolidation period of listening into calls and then taking live calls with a coach until you get signed of which can take up to 4 weeks. It's intense and really hard work. We also have constant update training and have calls audited on a monthly basis. We are taken off the phones if we are not up to scratch.

I think it's important to note that 111 is a signposting service. We direct you to the most appropriate service we don't provide the services ourselves. Our job is to triage your symptoms NOT TO OFFER A DIAGNOSIS. We work through an assessment based system based on ruling things out. At the point we can no longer rule something out we will offer a service. So if you have chest pain and your responses to our questions result in us not being able to rule out a heart attack then the system will recommend an ambulance. If however your answers are different it could present a variety of other options.

In my experience the people who are dissatisfied with 111 usually either knew what they wanted the outcome to be but are being offered something different. Or are actually unhappy with one of the external services (often the out of hours gps).