"Barriers to “ the right care”"

I am beyond frustrated with the NHS24 service. The public are encouraged to access the right care at the right time and right place, yet I have found trying to do that is utterly impossible. My mother had flu like symptoms and a cough which worsened over 5 days. She is otherwise well. I called aiming to get an out of hours appointment yet was told an ambulance was going to be sent. The call taker would not accept my own words in describing my mothers symptoms and repeatedly told me it was yes or no answers. I was so frustrated at these barriers.

I work for an ambulance service and my view is that we are struggling desperately to get resources to those most in need and this is made so much more difficult because of nhs24’s extremely risk averse processes which generate hundreds of demand for ambulances to attend people who were trying to access the right care. I have also experienced this with a sick child relative, where we just needed an out of hours consult, but instead we were told an ambulance was coming! We were told we could not just drive the child to a clinic or A& E! Thankfully the ambulance service has GP’s& AP’s who called us back and stood down the ambulance request. At a time when elderly people are lying on the ground for hours, people with chest pain are having cardiac arrests, I feel NHS24 can be complicit in negatively affecting emergency health care!

My mother was fortunate to receive a visit from an Advanced practitioner from the ambulance service who was able to assess and supply antibiotics, but we would have been very able to attend a health centre by car.

The government needs to make NHS24 accountable for how their practice affects wider public health.