Dear Sir,
I was astonished and dismayed to read the article in Newton News singing the praises of the NHS 111 service, based on my own experience of it. Dr James Gossow, the Regional Clinical Lead for NHS 111, is quoted as saying, amongst other things, that the service has ‘successfully been running in the North East since August 2010’.
It wasn’t successful on 26th May 2012, when I called it (twice) on behalf of my mother, who was feeling extremely unwell. The ‘highly trained call handlers’ both incorrectly assessed the urgency of her needs, and she waited in some distress for nearly six hours for a doctor.It was only when she passed out and I called 999 that they realised she was in a life-threatening condition, but it was too late by then.
After an investigation into her death, the NHS acknowledged that if the first operator had assessed my mother correctly, an ambulance would have attended within ten minutes.
I dread to think how many more incidents of this nature there have been in other parts of the country if, as Dr Gossow claims, ‘The North East is one of the highest performing areas in the country for the NHS 111 service’.
My advice to readers is to only use 111 for anything you are sure is not serious. If it might be serious, call 999, and be prepared for a frustrating experience. It’s easy to tell people to ‘keep calm’ in these situations, but it’s not so easy in practice when you’re in a traumatised state yourself and the operator says to you such things as ‘if she gets any worse, let us know’, when the patient is already unconscious!
J. Snowball
Address supplied