"Out of hours services"

My wife, who is a retired nurse, realized she had what she thought was a bladder/urinary tract infection early on a Saturday afternoon. We immediately called 111 from our home in Dover to see how she could be treated.

We checked with our local pharmacist, who said the doctor referred by 111 could call them with an antibiotic prescription and they would fill it, but only up until their closing time at 8pm.

We also obtained a urine test strip to check if there was an infection. The test strip confirmed that this was likely.

Accordingly, late that afternoon we called 111 back (not having been called back by the out of hours GP yet) to advise them of the results. They said they would add this information to the referral.

We did not receive a call back until about 10: 30-11 in the evening by a GP based in the out of hours service, it happened to be our own GP who knows us. We mentioned the test strip results. We hoped a prescription could be called through based on that, but were told my wife would have to see a GP in person for a further test. All that was available that evening was if we could go to Kent and Canterbury hospital in Canterbury and see a GP, but would not have an appointment until after midnight. We said we would prefer to see someone in Dover the next day, he said he would arrange for us to be called for an appointment with a GP at Buckland hospital in the morning.

We waited all day for this call. About 3:30pm we had a call saying we were still on the list and would be called. Finally, we were called by a staff member at about 8:30 pm in the evening who said the best they could do was arrange a doctor appointment at William Harvey hospital Ashford after midnight! They explained that there had been a lot of people calling 111 on the weekend and a number of doctors were away from the out of hours service.

We said we would rather wait and go to our own GP on Monday morning.

I had called 111 again in the afternoon to complain, but was told the 111 service and the out of hours GP service are separate, so 111 had no control over when the GP would call. When I said this to the staff member I spoke to, they said there were changes coming which might help join up these services better.

I am 69 with a heart condition and diabetes and would have had to drive my wife from our home in Dover to the after-midnight appointments offered in either Canterbury or Ashford. This would have been quite hard on both myself and my wife (who is 65).

Also, as we had reported the test results which had confirmed the infection, we thought a prescription could be arranged without seeing a doctor. Could not pharmacists be trained to test for bladder infection and be able to prescribe?

Our experience of using 111 on this occasion suggests we would have had a far quicker service had we gone to an A + E and waited the 4+ hours to see a doctor and receive an antibiotic prescription. Unfortunately, this would defeat part of the purpose of 111, which I thought was to relieve pressure on A and Es.