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Calling 111 for my 4 year old

Posted By Disappointed111

"Calling 111 for my 4 year old"

About: South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust / NHS 111

(as a parent/guardian),

I had cause to use the 111 Service one Friday evening. To say that it was disappointing is an understatement.

As a parent with a crying child in pain, trying to obtain some medical advice from an call centre adviser was an enormous waste of my time. The service was completely inflexible and not fit for purpose.

I believe the flow chart system that the call centre adviser is forced to use is too rigid, there is no listening that goes on and the problems of a 4 year old in pain cannot fit in to this series of questions. From a parents point of view, the number of unnecessary questions prolongs the time before you can obtain any appropriate care in an agonising way. The worst part was that by the time I got through all the unnecessary questions, the outcome was totally inappropriate. Being advised to make an appointment with my GP on Monday (so having to wait all Friday evening, all day Saturday and all day Sunday! ). Quite simply - wrong!

Even when I insisted on speaking to a medical person, she couldn't help and tried to make an out of hours appointment with a doctor. This was not possible and she assured me I would receive a phone call with an appointment from a doctor within a short time - to me this meant around 30-60 minutes. As it turned out, the phone call came some 7 hours after! What a shame we had the predecessor to the 111 service abolished, I think it was a far superior service.

I will be speaking to my local MP about this and my other terrible experiences of the 111 service and I hope that before long it is abolished and it's predecessor reinstated.

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Responses

Response from Louise Hutchinson, Head of Patient Experience, South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust 6 years ago
Louise Hutchinson
Head of Patient Experience,
South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 12/07/2017 at 11:48
Published on Care Opinion at 16:21

picture of Louise Hutchinson

Dear Disappointed 111

I was so sorry to read of your frustration and disappointment with the NHS111 service when you called for your four-year-old one Friday. It must have been a very worrying time for you and I am sorry you did not receive the high standard of service we would expect.

We are very keen to look into the concerns you raise, in terms of how the call was handled, the outcome of the call, and to establish whether the referral made to the out-of-ours GP service was made in the correct way, as we do seek to learn from and improve as a result of complaints such as yours.

It would therefore be very helpful if you were able to contact our Patient Experience Team, either by email to pet@secamb.nhs.uk or by telephone to 0300 123 9242, to provide some further details to enable us to locate, audit and review your call.

I do hope your little one has since recovered well, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely

Louise Hutchinson, Patient Experience Lead

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