"My elderly aunt's experience of the 111 Service."

My elderly relative who lives near Blackpool was in a lot of pain in her flat several days ago. She has a number of medical problems with her stomach and her legs, and whereas she normally copes with the pain, it had all got a lot worse and she ended up not being able to cope and feeling very frightened.

She and one of her neighbours who looks after her a lot, phoned the 111 service. The first person they spoke to said that a Dr would phone them within the hour.

To their credit the Dr did ring in a really timely fashion. But both my relative and the carer found it all very frustrating. The dr did not have any access to her records and when they asked why not? as she had previously signed a form agreeing to records being shared, the dr said the system of shared record keeping had been abandoned. So with my relatives quite complicated history it felt like the dr could never really understand the problems.

It seemed the Dr was not in a position where he could do anything about the situation, they could not get anyone out to her to assess and advise about pain control or tell them what to do. In the end they just said that they might have to ring 999, which is what eventually happened.

My relative and carer felt that the dr was sympathetic and sincere despite the fact that both were upset and angry. But essentially it was felt that they did not have the means to help or advise properly.