I have a friend who left NHS 24 when she saw the writing on the wall and is now working as a district nurse. It seems its replacement is no better, (for the punters).
tinyurl.com/qy8e4jx
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I've never used this new service, but I had to use NHS Direct a few times over the years, and I always found them to be very good.
Has anybody used both services?
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Used 111 on Wednesday 17th. Younger son complained of sore tummy ... actually groaning and as he is a stoic where pain is concerned .. I wanted to speak to a doctor, but being out of hours this was the only way. Was rung back by a nurse to run through history and shortly afterwards by a doctor who arranged an ambulance while we were still talking.
One of the advantages was that the hospital knew we were on our way and he arrived with fairly comprehensive notes for handover with various recordings of functions and straight into triage, rather than a forty minute drive followed by sitting in a waiting room with the usual city drunks.
Excellent timing on part of son, as I had finished icing the daughters wedding cake in the early hours of Wednesday morning and the Consultant worked hard to get us home late on Friday evening so he could help his brother to give his sister away on Saturday.
Less impressed by earlier service, whose nurse told my sister that as she could talk and the nurse could not hear her wheezing, her asthma attack was not serious. Fortunately someone popped in to see her ... She spent four days in intensive care.
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I have used 111 few times (not for myself but other members in my family).
Standard response after 15-20 minutes of patients' history, "Go to A&E if problem worsens or see your GP as soon as possible".
However, the good point of using it is that sometimes they can setup an urgent appointment with out of hours GPs which is not otherwise accessible to common public.
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NHS now use Harmoni units. Privately run places with medical people that you and I are paying for. Recently I had a gout flare up at a weekend. I just rang the local doc, knowing such calls get transferred to someone who can do something. I was soon talking to a nurse who booked me an appointment for later that day at a Harmoni suit -- a room in a part of our local hospital. It was efficient for my small problem. A doctor with gout experience gave me some tablets I had not previously known about, that worked very well. After two days of those the swelling and pain was almost gone. I then used a well known treatment to prevent it coming back.
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NHS direct = £20 per call, 111 = £8 per call. How can something so bad cost so much? 111 I mean!
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111 is going because at 8 quid a call its uneconomic, so clearly its not enough. Medical phone lines purely exist because people don't have sufficient common sense.
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The excellent Channel 4 series "Despatches" has a programme about this tonight - 8.30pm.
www.tvguide.co.uk/detail.asp?id=4925531
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Just watched the Dispatches programme - very shocking. CAB run a virtual call-centre across Wales - dozens working in offices across the Country - similar system of triage and assessment. The training is very thorough and no-one is allowed near a phone until they are confident in the national database, the information system and the telephony software. Call-takers are monitor on split headsets, are monitored and are trained in some considerable details on how to deal with calls. The calls are audited locally, and nationally by Quality Coaches. Users are a mix of volunteers and paid staff employed by the Bureau. It's a solid system, although waiting times can be lengthy. I still dabble at this and train others whilst I await my project to launch at the end of this month. Maybe Harmoni need to speak to CAB about the way they do business...
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NHS 111 to go? - SteelSpark
