"No Out of Hours Emergency Dentist"

I believe the 111 service is not fit for purpose and should be scrapped to provide more money for A&E outpatients.

I telephoned 111 on Friday and followed their advice to ring dentists in the area for an emergency appointment. Some dentists only provide an emergency service for registered patients and some were totally full, but I was advised by one of them to ring the Sisken Centre in Norwich and after 25 mins on hold, I was told there was no chance of an appointment as they only had 4 dentists covering the whole of Norfolk.

My son's condition worsened and swelling was evident. I called 111 again on Saturday and after assessment a clinician put us on a GP's call list, and claimed that GP's can be discretionary on treating this type of pain, but it would be up to the GP.

After waiting approx 5 hours for the call the GP refused to help and suggested A&E, he then suggested that I complain to the CQC as he said GP's were unhappy about covering out of hours dentistry. I told him that we would not be used as political pawns and asked him what GP's were doing about it. He replied that he was constantly complaining to his Manager at IC24 in Norwich, but nothing gets done so the more clients complain the better. I told him I would be writing to the IC24 unit in Norwich and he gave me the address.

I then called the 111 service and spoke to a member of staff who wrote extensive notes and told me that they did not have the telephone numbers for the emergency dentist appointments for Sunday, but would request a clinician to call me back with contacts. I waited all Saturday night with the phone on my lap and no clinician rang. About 8: 30 Sunday morning I rang 111 again, another member of staff told me the clinician rang and that it was logged as a missed call, that is simply not true, we need to know when the call was made and you need to investigate this immediately, as a consequence the case was closed. I was then told that all appointments were full to capacity and that this was known on Saturday, but no-one told me.

The 111 service seems to have a serious lack of providers and could only advise us to go to A&E. I have logged 2 complaints, 1 with each member of staff I spoke to. I will be requesting copies of these complaints as I do not have confidence in your complaints process.

My son was assessed over the phone 4 times, even though his circumstances had not changed. I have much more to say in a formal complaint letter which will be copied to the highest levels in the NHS and to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. In my opinion, the IC24 should be disbanded and funding should be placed within the NHS instead of an external call centre.