NHS Direct.

Well I think there is more emphasis here on saving money than worrying about the pressure of A + E centres. We have used the walk-in centre near us and have found that very a good alternaive to going to A + E but once we used the NHS Helpline after a person staying on a caravan site where we were at the time swallowed some calamine lotion (she said she thought it was cough medicine because it was in the same type of bottle) and she was being sick. I gave her some milk to drink to dilute the calamine lotion and as I did not know if it was very toxic or not we took her to the local A + E especially as she had major heart surgery just a few days before. I couldn't believe that the receptionist said to wait in the queue and there maybe a 2 hour wait to see a doctor and she said as the doctor may not know about poisons and would probably have to find out him/herself suggested we ring the NHS Helpline ourselves. I rang the helpline and the person phoned up someone with knowledge of poisons and I was told that I had done the best thing for calamine lotion and that she should be okay so we were reassured. This was several years ago when the NHS Helpline had just been set up. What good would 111 be in that situation? I still can't believe that my friend was not seen as an emergency.

Appalling - having worked in a call centre - I know that they use scripts - therefore if it is anything out of the ordinary they will instantly refer you to your out of hours GP, A&E or ambulance! This will put extra pressure on these services!

Having used NHS direct and spoken to a nurse - we were able to treat my son at home and not bother any of the out of hours services!

Another example of cost cutting without thinking things through! Lets just hope that the trial is rubbish and they rethink it all!

I have used the service a number of times, mainly for my son. They are invaluable out of hours when you are worried about your child and feel a drs call is an ove reaction.
I will however mention.the time that i rang them when my son was four weeks old and projectile vomiting. I got basically dismissed as a neurotic first time mum. Being persistent i took him to my gp the next day, when he was admitted to hospital and,placed on a,drip. He had an operation the day after and was fine.
Since then i take their advice with a pinch of salt . But they are great to be able to blame on the very few ocassions i have used the out of hours service.