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Not impressed

Posted By Happy brick

"Not impressed"

About: NHS 24

(as a service user),

Phoning up for my son who has cellulitis.

Ten mins wait to speak to a human (call handler) .

Explained the situation. 

Call back approx 1.5hr later (which was well within 3hr time given) who we assumed wrongly was a nurse who asked a few more questions...Then said they'd speak to a nurse and put us on hold.

Advised to take analgesia and elevate (my son had told them that he had already been doing this and the redness had spread).

Had to phone back again today as symptoms were worse.  This time got a much nicer call handler.... Again never got a clinician on callback but did get an appointment for out of hours.

And they wonder why A&E has added pressure when we have to jump through hoops and still actually don't get a clinical person to assess.

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Responses

Response from Shona Lawrence, Clinical Governance Lead, Nursing and Care, NHS 24 6 years ago
Shona Lawrence
Clinical Governance Lead, Nursing and Care,
NHS 24

Submitted on 03/04/2018 at 08:44
Published on Care Opinion at 11:29

picture of Shona Lawrence


Dear Happy brick

Thank you for the second posting via Care Opinion. I do hope your son is improving.

I am sorry for your wait to access NHS 24. Over the four day Easter weekend period, we managed 36,445 calls to our 111 Unscheduled Care Service. Whilst much planning and preparation goes into ensuring our staffing levels are adequate to meet the forecasted demand on our service, it is unfortunate that, at some times, callers have to wait on their call being answered.

Depending on the severity of the symptoms being displayed by a patient, NHS 24 will try to manage a call to conclusion without the requirement for this to be placed on the clinical queue to await a call back as we do appreciate that callers to our service can be worried or anxious about their health or that of a loved one. However, in order to expedite patient care, we do, from time to time, under the guidance of a Senior Nurse, ask our Call Handlers to contact a patient further to obtain more information on their symptoms etc. This can be valuable to us and can help us to effectively progress care for the patient.

I note your son was provided with an appointment to attend at A&E and I do wish him well.

If you care to discuss this further with us, we would be pleased to hear from you. Please do not hesitate to contact our Patient Affairs Team at patientaffairs@nhs24.scot.nhs.uk or by telephone on 0141 337 4597.

Thanks again for sharing your experience.

With regards

Shona

Shona Lawrence

NHS 24 Patient Affairs Manager

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