Your harrowing accounts of bungled calls

The Mail has been deluged with stories from readers telling of shocking experiences when calling the helpline. here are some of your stories: My nephew would have died if his parents had listened to the advice. The paramedic told them he just had a tummy ache. They drove him to hospital themselves, and the doctor told them he had a twisted bowel and would have been at risk of dying had they not brought him in. My advice is, if your instinct tells you something is seriously wrong, go to a hospital.

Caroleena, Chesham, Buckinghamshire I would have died if I hadn’t ignored the advice. I collapsed, came round a few minutes later with severe abdominal pain, and got my husband to ring for help. They said that since I was able to talk, I was obviously not in need of hospital treatment. They said to just rest and review things in 12 hours. I went to hospital. I had internal bleeding – my bowel had perforated.

Lulu, Newcastle I phoned the NHS helpline, told them my symptoms, and they were rude about it and said it sounded like a bug. I went to A&E as I was in so much pain, and the next day I had to have an emergency operation to get my appendix out. Just go to A&E – I would never trust the helpline again.

Anon, Newcastle I’d never phone 111 again. My husband was told to take something to lower his temperature, and phone the doctor’s the next day. He ended up in hospital a few hours later after fitting. Turns out he had septicaemia. He was in intensive care for a week and hospital for four weeks altogether.

Anon, Swindon

Our daughter was very ill when we phoned them. They asked us so many questions to tick all the relevant boxes. When it became apparent they hadn’t a clue, we were referred to a nurse – who then proceeded to ask us all the questions already covered. These even included: ‘How are you related to your daughter?’ I told them my daughter could be dead by now, after one and a half hours on the phone!

Anon, Cardiff Used this service on two different occasions and found the service both times useless and really frustrating. Questioning goes round in circles. l would never recommend this service and my best advice would be go straight to A&E.

Toni, Wales I was let down by the helpline. I told the nurse I couldn’t move my neck, couldn’t bear bright light, couldn’t get warm and had a rash that wouldn’t go away when pressed with a glass. She told me it wasn’t the sort of rash they are interested in. A colleague recognised my symptoms and dragged me off to A&E. Everybody reading this is thinking ‘meningitis’, but that nurse didn’t, and I nearly died. Time to shut this helpline and use the money to provide more staff in A&E or doctors’ surgeries.

Christina, UK I was told I would get a call back in two hours. Fortunately my son called an ambulance or I would have died in 30 minutes of waiting for the call back!

Anon, Nottingham I lasted two weeks as a nurse doing this. Two weeks’ training is all I got. I realised how unsafe it was and left after first day on live calls.

Nurse, Stockport My friend worked in one of these departments and left through stress. She said that many times there was no medical staff on site that she could ask for help because they’d had cuts themselves. The phone was ringing constantly because they didn’t have enough staff to answer all the calls.

Pauline, Crawley, West Sussex I’ve been given incorrect information, promised call backs that never come, been told that they plain don’t know the answer to my question and there was nobody there to ask. It baffles me that 111 isn’t manned by trained professionals. It is literally an untrained call centre taking details and reading off a sheet. And they wonder why everyone just goes to A&E!

Rebecca, York The hotline is a joke. Used it last night as my daughter had a rash spreading up her arm coupled with a headache and sore neck. Ended up having to press any key several times just to get through to a person, after the long pre-recorded liability speech at the start of the call. Lives could be lost due to this nonsense. It wastes valuable time.

Leigh, Edinburgh 111 is an absolute shambles and utterly pointless. Had a tooth abscess, rang 111 and had to go through inane questions six times when all I wanted was a direct number for out-ofhours dentist. Nobody knew, nobody helped. I would never, ever leave to the Government the life of my child. A&E always.

Anon, Middlesbrough Out-of-hours GP services used to be run by GPs. You would speak to a GP within 15 minutes, who would advise you either to go to A&E, come to the out-of-hours GP centre or how to manage at home. Now you speak to a non-medical call-handler who follows a script.

Anon, London