Interesting weekend.

[Saul]

Just had a ball ache of a weekend at work, mental busy what with the Strep A and Scarlet Fever plus other stuff, against the huge lack of resources that is affecting all of the British Health care.    But not wanting to get political we had one call that had both the Clinician and me pissing ourselves laughing.  We had a call to a fag munching old biddy who is well know to our service (NHS 111) as a frequent PIA, anyway she had made a 999  call earlier in the evening saying she couldn't breathe for what was in effect a chest infection.  The Ambulance crew referred her on to our service for a visit after seeing her.  We eventually rocked up to her place, at 2:30 am on a very rough council estate.  House all in darkness and no answer at the door. 

My clinician decides to ring her, she could have been collapsed or be in distress or any number of things, it was a safeguarding issue.  I dialled on the car phone. 

She picked up, shouting "Who the Fuck is that calling me at this time in the morning." 

My clinician responded, "Hello Mrs **** this is the Out Of Hours Doctors service and we have come to visit you, and we are outside of your front door."   

Her response, "Well you can fuck off, I have a cold and I am not answering the door now its freezing you stupid bastard". 

But this time I was biting  my sleeve trying not to laugh.  

My clinician whilst hitting me and hissing shut up, responded, "We had a call to visit you and are concerned that you may need our help,  are you sure you don't want to me to see you now we are here"

Old Lady: "No fuck off and let me sleep". 

My Clinician: "Ok perhaps you could follow up with your own GP in the morning if you don't want to see me now"

Old Lady: "No point ringing those useless cunts, now fuck off". 

My Clinician, still clouting me: "Ok are you going to be ok, as we have to leave to do other calls now"

Old lady:  "I will be fine it's only a cold now fuck off" 

My Clinician "Goodnight Mrs **** hope you get some sleep and feel better in the morning" Click! 

So after both of us recovered from our giggling fit off we fucked to the next call.     

My clinician emailed his notes to her surgery and requested they call her in the morning to check she was ok.    I hate to think of the reception they got today. 

I was secretly delighted we didn't have to go in as I would have had to accompany my Clinician as a chaperone and I wasn't keen.  Of course it's part of my job and I would have done it but I didn't fancy it really.  

 

I know it sounds daft but we had just come from a horrific end of life visit and having Mrs Angry, who sounded fine, swearing at us was a happy relief  .    

 

 

 

 

[XTreme]

44 minutes ago, Saul said:

Just had a ball ache of a weekend at work, mental busy what with the Strep A and Scarlet Fever plus other stuff, against the huge lack of resources that is affecting all of the British Health care.    But not wanting to get political we had one call that had both the Clinician and me pissing ourselves laughing.  We had a call to a fag munching old biddy who is well know to our service (NHS 111) as a frequent PIA, anyway she had made a 999  call earlier in the evening saying she couldn't breathe for what was in effect a chest infection.  The Ambulance crew referred her on to our service for a visit after seeing her.  We eventually rocked up to her place, at 2:30 am on a very rough council estate.  House all in darkness and no answer at the door. 

My clinician decides to ring her, she could have been collapsed or be in distress or any number of things, it was a safeguarding issue.  I dialled on the car phone. 

She picked up, shouting "Who the Fuck is that calling me at this time in the morning." 

My clinician responded, "Hello Mrs **** this is the Out Of Hours Doctors service and we have come to visit you, and we are outside of your front door."   

Her response, "Well you can fuck off, I have a cold and I am not answering the door now its freezing you stupid bastard". 

But this time I was biting  my sleeve trying not to laugh.  

My clinician whilst hitting me and hissing shut up, responded, "We had a call to visit you and are concerned that you may need our help,  are you sure you don't want to me to see you now we are here"

Old Lady: "No fuck off and let me sleep". 

My Clinician: "Ok perhaps you could follow up with your own GP in the morning if you don't want to see me now"

Old Lady: "No point ringing those useless cunts, now fuck off". 

My Clinician, still clouting me: "Ok are you going to be ok, as we have to leave to do other calls now"

Old lady:  "I will be fine it's only a cold now fuck off" 

My Clinician "Goodnight Mrs **** hope you get some sleep and feel better in the morning" Click! 

So after both of us recovered from our giggling fit off we fucked to the next call.     

My clinician emailed his notes to her surgery and requested they call her in the morning to check she was ok.    I hate to think of the reception they got today. 

I was secretly delighted we didn't have to go in as I would have had to accompany my Clinician as a chaperone and I wasn't keen.  Of course it's part of my job and I would have done it but I didn't fancy it really.  

 

I know it sounds daft but we had just come from a horrific end of life visit and having Mrs Angry, who sounded fine, swearing at us was a happy relief  .    

 

 

 

 

Get her to sign up here! 

[Saul]

18 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Get her to sign up here! 

Well she does have the right vocabulary 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

6 minutes ago, Saul said:

Well she does have the right vocabulary 

What are you fucking alluding to?

[Six30]

45 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Get her to sign up here! 

yeh.. with pictures... for @Marcel

[Six30]

20 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

What are you fucking alluding to?

you ruined that ... with alluding

[boboneleg]

She sounds like a right sort.  Unfortunately this weekend I've had quite the opposite response after phoning 111, in fact I would that service an utter shambles  

[Saul]

9 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

She sounds like a right sort.  Unfortunately this weekend I've had quite the opposite response after phoning 111, in fact I would that service an utter shambles  

I would say that Out Of Hours part where I work is a service that is utterly swamped by the volume of work it is expected to deal with.  Lots of good people working very hard but the triage lists are huge and we often fail people who are ill.  I have to be careful what I say but I do know what happens in Cornwall and the resources are way too small to deal with the volume of work.  Many people don't get the treatment they expect and that is a shame but the amount of dross our clinicians have to work through to get to those in need is staggering.    I know our triage list (people waiting for a call back from a clinician) was way above 200 last night.  Only 11 clinicians on duty in the whole county to deal with the triage list, visits and treatment centre appointments with seven of those being on the cars.  Weekdays it is worse.  The same is true across the whole of the NHS.    I could tell story after story about it but nobody wants to hear it or really cares until it affects them.  Now I am tired and am saying to much so time for bed.  I am genuinely sorry things didn't work for you Bob.   

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

54 minutes ago, Six30 said:

you ruined that ... with alluding

I know, good right, I was going for a type of oxymoron

[boboneleg]

22 minutes ago, Saul said:

I am genuinely sorry things didn't work for you Bob.   

It's not your problem Saul and I won't go into details but I was shocked at the total lack of care in the phone calls I received from Ipswich and London ?? over a 27 hour period. Not once did I speak to a doctor (as promised) and the final caller just wanted to tick me off her box .

I have the upmost respect for the NHS , having spent several periods in hospital in the last 20 years but I will never ring 111 again.

[Buckster]

2 hours ago, Saul said:

Just had a ball ache of a weekend at work, mental busy what with the Strep A and Scarlet Fever plus other stuff, against the huge lack of resources that is affecting all of the British Health care.    But not wanting to get political we had one call that had both the Clinician and me pissing ourselves laughing.  We had a call to a fag munching old biddy who is well know to our service (NHS 111) as a frequent PIA, anyway she had made a 999  call earlier in the evening saying she couldn't breathe for what was in effect a chest infection.  The Ambulance crew referred her on to our service for a visit after seeing her.  We eventually rocked up to her place, at 2:30 am on a very rough council estate.  House all in darkness and no answer at the door. 

My clinician decides to ring her, she could have been collapsed or be in distress or any number of things, it was a safeguarding issue.  I dialled on the car phone. 

She picked up, shouting "Who the Fuck is that calling me at this time in the morning." 

My clinician responded, "Hello Mrs **** this is the Out Of Hours Doctors service and we have come to visit you, and we are outside of your front door."   

Her response, "Well you can fuck off, I have a cold and I am not answering the door now its freezing you stupid bastard". 

But this time I was biting  my sleeve trying not to laugh.  

My clinician whilst hitting me and hissing shut up, responded, "We had a call to visit you and are concerned that you may need our help,  are you sure you don't want to me to see you now we are here"

Old Lady: "No fuck off and let me sleep". 

My Clinician: "Ok perhaps you could follow up with your own GP in the morning if you don't want to see me now"

Old Lady: "No point ringing those useless cunts, now fuck off". 

My Clinician, still clouting me: "Ok are you going to be ok, as we have to leave to do other calls now"

Old lady:  "I will be fine it's only a cold now fuck off" 

My Clinician "Goodnight Mrs **** hope you get some sleep and feel better in the morning" Click! 

So after both of us recovered from our giggling fit off we fucked to the next call.     

My clinician emailed his notes to her surgery and requested they call her in the morning to check she was ok.    I hate to think of the reception they got today. 

I was secretly delighted we didn't have to go in as I would have had to accompany my Clinician as a chaperone and I wasn't keen.  Of course it's part of my job and I would have done it but I didn't fancy it really.  

 

I know it sounds daft but we had just come from a horrific end of life visit and having Mrs Angry, who sounded fine, swearing at us was a happy relief  .    

 

 

 

 

Sounds like one of Pete’s daughter in laws.

[Saul]

7 hours ago, boboneleg said:

It's not your problem Saul and I won't go into details but I was shocked at the total lack of care in the phone calls I received from Ipswich and London ?? over a 27 hour period. Not once did I speak to a doctor (as promised) and the final caller just wanted to tick me off her box .

I have the upmost respect for the NHS , having spent several periods in hospital in the last 20 years but I will never ring 111 again.

I wish I could say your experience was rare but its not.  I am also sure people come away from using our service (Kernow Health CIC) with the same experience as you had.    111 is a patch work of OOH services around England with levels of contact often farmed out to different areas depending on call volume.    Which is why you were bounced around.  The service is run mostly by Nurse Practitioners and Advanced Paramedics, all very clever and hard working people but not GP's.  On Sunday there were only 2 GP's working in our overnight service to cover a county of 450,000 which more than doubles in holiday periods.    Hence why we use the term Clinician.     Now with the experience you had, you can probably guess at the level of abuse our call centre staff get as people who are ill get frustrated, it is very hard to retain them given that they work out of hours for just above minimum wage.    There is a lot of responsibility and a high turnover, and not surprisingly very low moral.   We are recruiting all the time but can never catch up.  I have seen many good people leave because the job is unbearable long term.  I would not do it.      None of that excuses the poor treatment you had and nobody in our service wants it to be that way but it is unfortunately all to common.     The real reason things are the way they are is money or lack of it and a public with the attitude like the old biddy I described.  Who thought that with a cold it was ok to use the 999 service and then later to tell the 111 service to fuck off rather than open the front door and have the care she asked for.    Tis a bleak outlook on a NHS service that is failing and that makes me sad.  

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

38 minutes ago, Saul said:

The service is run mostly by Nurse Practitioners and Advanced Paramedics,

This is most misleading. The calls are answered by ‘trained people’.
This mostly means theyre trained to follow a flow chart and know f’ll. They have to tick boxes that an algorithm then dictates the outcome. 
It very basically tries to establish if the person is in any immediate danger and if they’re not tell them to see their GP. Personally I’ve used 111 once. The lack of basic knowledge was appalling.
 

I doubled checked who’s manning it in case this has changed and it hasn’t. 
No need to sully the name of nurse practitioners or advanced paramedics, they maybe in charge of the service but your chances of speaking to someone medically trained are remote which is why 111 isn’t fit for purpose. 
 

Like you say money money money. 

[Saul]

I certainly was not trying to be misleading.  I think we may be talking at cross purposes, I was not talking about the call center staff who work as you say.   The service is not fit for purpose as people perceive it, as it is not properly staffed or funded.  

But our service is run by Nurse Practitioners and Advanced Paramedics once the calls get through to the triage list.   They also have to see TCs and work on the cars.  

I made the point that they are very committed and hard working people and I would never sully their name or what they do.  I am in awe of their commitment and professionalism.  They are exceptional people.  

[Buckster]

1 hour ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

This is most misleading. The calls are answered by ‘trained people’.
This mostly means theyre trained to follow a flow chart and know f’ll. They have to tick boxes that an algorithm then dictates the outcome. 
It very basically tries to establish if the person is in any immediate danger and if they’re not tell them to see their GP. Personally I’ve used 111 once. The lack of basic knowledge was appalling.
 

I doubled checked who’s manning it in case this has changed and it hasn’t. 
No need to sully the name of nurse practitioners or advanced paramedics, they maybe in charge of the service but your chances of speaking to someone medically trained are remote which is why 111 isn’t fit for purpose. 
 

Like you say money money money. 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

2 hours ago, Saul said:

I certainly was not trying to be misleading.  I think we may be talking at cross purposes, I was not talking about the call center staff who work as you say.   The service is not fit for purpose as people perceive it, as it is not properly staffed or funded.  

But our service is run by Nurse Practitioners and Advanced Paramedics once the calls get through to the triage list.   They also have to see TCs and work on the cars.  

I made the point that they are very committed and hard working people and I would never sully their name or what they do.  I am in awe of their commitment and professionalism.  They are exceptional people.  

Fair enough.

 

But this bit does sound like you're saying 111 is run by Nurse Practitioners or Advanced paramedics and thats why it is the way it is -

3 hours ago, Saul said:

111 is a patch work of OOH services around England with levels of contact often farmed out to different areas depending on call volume.    Which is why you were bounced around.  The service is run mostly by Nurse Practitioners and Advanced Paramedics, all very clever and hard working people but not GP's. 

 

Yep it can be utterly soul destroying, I don't know a single happy NHS employee and thats not because they don't like their job it's because they can't do their job properly and like you say the attitude of the general public towards you can be the icing on the cake. I anticipate if the nursing strikes go ahead it will be twisted into the nurses who are destroying the NHS and endangering patients, not the gross mistreatment of the staff by ministers who don't give a shit unless their re-election is threatened or they need medical help themselves!

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

35 minutes ago, Buckster said:

Twat

[boboneleg]

55 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Fair enough.

 

But this bit does sound like you're saying 111 is run by Nurse Practitioners or Advanced paramedics and thats why it is the way it is -

 

Yep it can be utterly soul destroying, I don't know a single happy NHS employee and thats not because they don't like their job it's because they can't do their job properly and like you say the attitude of the general public towards you can be the icing on the cake. I anticipate if the nursing strikes go ahead it will be twisted into the nurses who are destroying the NHS and endangering patients, not the gross mistreatment of the staff by ministers who don't give a shit unless their re-election is threatened or they need medical help themselves!

Did you here that wanker Tory minister yesterday saying that the nurses going on strike would play right into Putin's hand , wtf has it got to do with Putin.  What a feckin knob 

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1705227/Conservative-strikes-nurses-NHS-rail-Christmas-Nadhim-Zahawi-Vladimir-Putin-latest-vn?ref=todayheadlines.live

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

4 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

Did you here that wanker Tory minister yesterday saying that the nurses going on strike would play right into Putin's hand , wtf has it got to do with Putin.  What a feckin knob 

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1705227/Conservative-strikes-nurses-NHS-rail-Christmas-Nadhim-Zahawi-Vladimir-Putin-latest-vn?ref=todayheadlines.live

Nope hadn't seen it, tbh I avoid reading about what Tory cunts are saying to justify their behaviour over the NHS, it upsets me. But I did see the Tory MP's all cheering in the Houses of Parliament when they stopped Nurses pay rise just before the pandemic. Then I watched them claim the credit for the excellent work the NHS did and knew their synchophantic rhetoric would turn into damning sound bites as soon as it was over and they'd stuffed their friends and families pockets with billions and there's no money left for the likes of you.

Urgh. 

[XTreme]

Justice is coming for this bitch and the other greedy cheating fuckers who filled their boots in the feeding frenzy of the Tory profiteering PPE racket.

[Saul]

1 hour ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

But this bit does sound like you're saying 111 is run by Nurse Practitioners or Advanced paramedics and thats why it is the way it is -

I can see that re reading it, wasn't my intent though.  

My Job and that of the Clinicians I work with starts at the triage list so that is what we focus on.   There are several steps before anyone gets on that list to get a chance to talk to a medic and while I know that, it's not part of our working focus.    

I have the suspicion that the call center systems in place are often set up just to put people off so that they do just wait until the morning and try and get through to their own GP. 

I think that 111 is toted as the answer to everything, GP shortages, District Nurse shortages, MIU staff shortages, emergency dental care, OOH mental health care and the list goes on.  It's not realistic to think our relatively small service can take up all that slack and to sell that idea to the public is misleading.    Especially given that we are short staffed and have the same challenges of recruiting as the rest of the NHS.   That is why our service is overwhelmed and people don't get the care from us they expect.   

The clinicians in our service prioritise the End of Life care, acute but not necessarily emergency pain (blocked catheters and such), the elderly although they do deal with many other cases as well.  Now I have probably worded that clumsily as well but I just drive the cars, chaperone, stock the drugs and do the paperwork.  

I would say it is no wonder that NHS staff struggle and moral is rock bottom.  A lot of the non clinical people I work with are looking for a different job, personally I love my job but I genuinely don't know how long I can afford to do it.    I could earn more stacking shelves, don't want to but may not have the choice ultimately.  

[Tango]

On 06/12/2022 at 12:34, boboneleg said:

Did you here that wanker Tory minister yesterday saying that the nurses going on strike would play right into Putin's hand , wtf has it got to do with Putin.  What a feckin knob 

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1705227/Conservative-strikes-nurses-NHS-rail-Christmas-Nadhim-Zahawi-Vladimir-Putin-latest-vn?ref=todayheadlines.live

Yeah, he's the knob who was pulled up for putting his horse stables heating on his parliamentary expenses! Then claimed that he didn't know that he shouldn't have done so! And people still vote for twats like him! 

[Tango]

On 06/12/2022 at 12:57, XTreme said:

Justice is coming for this bitch and the other greedy cheating fuckers who filled their boots in the feeding frenzy of the Tory profiteering PPE racket.

Yeah, that'll get brushed under the carpet, just watch!