"Patient left on the floor for 3 hours"

My boyfriend had debilitating back pain from last night, it was so bad he was waking us yelling in pain every hour or so when moving in his sleep. Called nhs 24 in the morning when he was unable to move or sit up. The advice given was that his girlfriend (me) would just have to take the day off work and get him ibuprofen.

I did, luckily, manage to get this time off without notice. After an hour on the strongest over the counter ibuprofen he was still unable to move but he tried to stand in order to get the toilet. He ended up falling to the floor with the pain and wasn’t lucid enough to even communicate what he needed due to how bad it was. We call nhs24 back and this time their advice was to go pick up paracetamol instead this time. He was on the floor for 3 hours because I was not strong enough to get him up on my own as much as I tried to.

They also felt the need to take us off hold after overhearing me tell my boyfriend I was taking him to a&e to lecture me on how that was improper use of the service and they don’t respond to “minor injuries.” For reference my boyfriend had scored his pain a 9 out of 10. When he asked what he was supposed to do because he was unable to move the response was along the lines of “what do you expect us to do?”.

I’m writing this tonight and after managing to get him back to bed he is still unable to mobilise himself. 

I myself have now pulled a muscle in my back from trying to lift him from the floor for so long on my own and both of us have been left feeling extremely upset at the level of care (which I would argue was none) that we received. 

I, myself, work in healthcare and I would never dream of treating any patient like this and if I saw that happening I’d have reported it and intervened. Why does this not seem to apply to nhs24 who still have a duty of care regardless of whether they can hide behind a phone.

What terrifies me and has left me with a horrible churning feeling is what if I hadn’t been able to take this time off work or what if I hadn’t been there to help him especially when he fell. I gives me a churning feeling because I already know the answer, he would have been left in excruciating pain with no relief and he would have lay on that floor, in tears and panicking, until god knows when.