Why NHS 111 isn’t good for littles

It’s a horrible twist of fate that just that at the most inopportune time or place you can have a sudden attack of a bugirus (bug and/or virus).

If you have a little, you accredit 99.9% of crying and unhappiness to teething and/or tiredness.

You worry more when they don’t eat.

Even more so when they don’t want to drink.

Even more so again when you are going through nappies like you wouldn’t believe.

So much when they are spiking up a fever.

You zombie-fy yourself when the bugirus keeps them awake.

I’m keeping Calpol in business, I think.

I really love our surgery. Their policy is that they are always happy to see or speak to parents about little kids. I know I can if I need to get my little to them on the same day, or at least speak to a doctor if I just want to be reassured. Most of the time, what I want is reassurance that I’m doing all the right things, and that I’m not missing anything more sinister.

Last time I took my little in, the doctor told me I was wasting money on certain medicines, and infant paracetamol and ibuprofen where, if nothing else, the staples of the baby medicine cupboard. It’s good advice.

This is why NHS 111 service fails. You might have a crying little in the background, and you are going through what feels like a list of miscellaneous questions you can’t hear. I get it, they have to rule out the more serious stuff.

I’ve used this service several times. I don’t put the phone down feeling reassured.

I feel like someone has read out to me the google advice I could get myself. I’m usually signposted in the direction of the same place I would go if NHS 111 didn’t exist.

But then again, the ever stretched service said it need its “non-emergency number”. Frightening stats have come to light – ambulances not being dispatched when requested and needed, call handlers sending more people to A&E and out of hours units, public newspapers deeming it a “disaster”.

So, what’s for littles? Whatever’s best for you. But I’m hearing a lot of those who love, look after and live with littles would far sooner run down to A&E than be hanging on a phone to be sent there, or thereabouts anyway.

Littles are just too precious to hang about.