Conversations with NHS Direct

Two days ago I sustained an injury whilst climbing. My standard response is to take a few pain killers and trust that things will sort themselves out. However, as other climbers will know, a hand injury can turn out to be pretty serious if ignored.

So 10 o’clock at night I needed some advice and if I am honest, a bit of reassurance I had not done something serious. I decided to call NHS Direct. Having talked to them before regarding a horse riding injury (yes, I am very accident prone) I was confident they would be able to help me.

Well, apparently 10pm is the time when everyone is in the throws of some sort of medical emergency and the automated message told me if I considered myself non-urgent I would not be able to talk to someone inside the next 4 hours.

I was annoyed and tweeted my annoyance including @nhsdirect. They saw my tweet and got back to me straight away.

Although they could not offer me any medical advice, it was nice to get a personal reply after feeling fobbed off by an automated message. A brief conversation followed between us and I was particularly struck by this tweet…

At Patient Opinion, we are always encouraging the NHS organisations we work with to respond personally to feedback on the site. This understandably can be frightening to do. Often it is so east to hide behind the organisation. If feels safer to say the trust is sorry or we are sorry, rather than I am sorry.

However, being told “sorry I can’t do more” I was reminded that NHS Direct is not some giant machine but an organisation made up of people. People who, on the whole, are just trying to do their best. More than ever I am convinced of the importance of social media (such as twitter) in helping the NHS interact with the population it serves. If done well, social media allows NHS organisations to show its humanity and connect with people on a personal level. This can prove to be invaluable in helping to resolving conflict.

Without my twitter interaction last night I would have still being frustrated by the responsiveness of NHS Direct and would have thought twice before ringing them again. People can be fickle like that.