So let's set the scene: NHS24 receives 1.5 million phone calls every year. In one 6 month period period (April to October), 32,881 calls were abandoned. A quick bit of mental arithmetic would make that roughly 66,000 in the whole year. My trusty calculator tells me that's .04% of the total calls received. Not an overwhelming number. Certainly within acceptable limits, I would think.
That's not how it's presented by the Tory MSP who writes about it: she makes it 150 calls a day abandoned. Well, that sounds a lot worse, doesn't it? She also says 2016 will be a 'record year' for abandoned calls but doesn't give any figures to back that up - like maybe figures for previous years.
She goes on to give reasons for people abandoning calls: 'because it's taking too long or being cut off through no fault of their own.' Both causes are possible but there's no suggestion that NHS24 has given her that information so she's frankly making it up. I could suggest a few more reasons people abandon calls:
- people phone up and then they or a relative decide they really need to go to A&E.
- people phone up, are put on hold because the staff are busy and hang up because, believe it on not, there are people in this world whose patience runs out after 30 seconds - sometimes sooner.
- people phone up and curse at the operator who then hangs up. That's official policy endorsed by employers. I did it a few times myself. Nobody goes to work to be abused.
- in odd cases, people phone up when they're drunk or on drugs, make no sense to the call handler who refers it to a supervisor and, after investigation, they hang up.
NHS24 says there's no evidence of staff ending calls 'inappropriately.' All calls are recorded so I'm guessing NHS24's IT staff and online supervisors can and do sample calls to check that.
So is there anything to worry about here?
In the case of NHS24 I worry about the stress call handlers are under, not to mention their supervisors and medical staff. Everyone can see onscreen while they are dealing with one sick person how many other people are waiting in the queue. They are trained medical people though, and deal with calls the way the rest of us wouldn't be able to: they are calm, they follow the protocols (is this a child we're dealing with or an elderly person or someone with a pre-existing condition?) and they are unfailingly polite and helpful.
I've only ever had to call them twice. The first time, I was able to go to an all-night chemist and pick up an inhaler; the second time, I was referred to the GP out-of-hours department at the Victoria Infirmary. In both cases, I was expected, didn't have to hang about and emerged reassured. I was also reassured when my GP practice phoned me next day to check how I was. Evidence to me of good communication and record-keeping.
If there's anything to worry about, it's the attitude of certain politicians and the media who seem to make endless Freedom of Information requests which they then try to stitch into an anti-NHS story. It doesn't surprise me at all that this story was put together by a Tory MSP. She is clearly following the agenda set down by the party in Westminster. The agenda looks like this:
1 Starve the NHS of money so that there aren't enough hospital doctors or nurses or beds, and waiting times go through the roof.
2 Starve the local authorities of money and blame them for not putting adequate care budgets in place. Then old people stuck in hospital because they can't get a care package in place to go home can be blamed for clogging up the NHS.
3 Blame the employees of the NHS, doctors, nurses and ancillary services like ambulance drivers and paramedics for refusing to swallow the idiotic idea that you can get 7-day services for a budget that barely covers 5.
4 Ignore the fact that the population has more and more older people needing medical attention. Ignore the fact that the population is growing anyway so we really need more GPs and more surgeries. Blame migrants for clogging up surgeries, despite the fact that we know - we know - that migrant workers do not over-use health facilities because they come here to work - and they work damned hard.
5 Get the right wing press to claim the NHS is failing. We're all each other's enemies now, fighting over a smaller and smaller pie, so we won't disagree when someone like Jeremy Hunt starts to privatise the NHS and other members of his party start to tell us that insurance (as in the US health system that is currently failing 27.5million people and which charges twice as much as the NHS) is the only way forward. Don't let anyone tell you the NHS is free. We pay for our NHS. Even I, retired nearly 9 years now, am still paying my share and happy to do so.
Above all, never forget: Nye Bevan, who fought hard to get his plan through Attlee’s postwar Labour cabinet, was determined the NHS should “universalise the best” care and not simply act as a safety net for the poor, and should be based on need, rather than ability to pay.
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