I and 5 members of my family were involved in a high speed road traffic accident. Although an ambulance was called, one was never despatched as we had only light injuries.
I called NHS111 the next day to find out how we could get checked out medically. The first response was that an ambulance would be despatched to my home address. After some time we had a call from the ambulance unit saying that we should instead go to a Small Injuries Unit or A&E.
* I was told that the best option was to go to Harwich, which the agent said was only 11 miles from my home address. The agent obviously used a line of sight measure, as the road distance is 33 miles due to 2 river estuaries.
* We all attended Ipswich A&E, where 4 of us were triaged by one nurse to the Small Injuries Unit - to be seen by a nurse practitioner, and 2 of us triaged by another nurse to be seen by a doctor.
After about seven hours, my wife and I saw a doctor, who said that high speed traffic accident patients should always be seen by a doctor because of the likelihood of whiplash injuries. Whilst waiting to be seen obs were only performed on myself and my wife (both of us are in our eighties).
The doctor stated that had we attended at Harwich, we would only have been referred back to a full A&E at Ipswich. If this information is true, then surely NHS111 agents should be made aware of referring high speed RTC victims to a full A&E hospital.
5 of us had soft tissue injuries, and I had a perforated eardrum.
Staff attitude