I was hospitalised while on holiday in France after being bit by something that made my ankle swell and induced blood poisoning which went from ankle to groin. Was on a course of antibiotics intravenous then tablets for a week. Upon return to UK visited my doctor who prescribed an extra 3 days of medication which I completed last Monday.
Everything seemed OK until yesterday when noticed a sore area between knee and groin on same leg as before. Got up this morning and leg still sore. Sue advised ringing NHS 111 out of hours medical assistance for advice. I explained the situation to the call advisor and answered loads of questions to my general wellbeing and advised a Doctor would call me back within 2 hours. The call was made at midday today. At 15:30 called 111 again to explain I had called at 12:00 hours to be put on hold for 5 minutes then told they were very busy but a doctor would call asap. Still waiting for a call now 18:51pm
Guess 111 is waste of time !!!!

25.5 hours since logged and no response from medical. Making an appointment with doctor tomorrow morning !

I had a completely different experience. My wife had chest pains, so called 111 Saturday morning, went through a number of questions, I was told to standby, and then was told an ambulance would be with us shortly. Within 5 or 6 minutes an ambulance AND a paramedic car turned up. 3 very cheery ambulance women then proceeded to do all sorts of tests on my wife, spending an hour or so fussing over her. Thankfully she was deemed ok, with no imminent heart attack, so they left, in good spirits. Amazing service, and in such contrast to yours Mike.

We are caring for my sister who is living with us and is bedridden with cancer. Last Saturday her catheter blocked and we called 111 at 6pm. A nurse arrived at 2.30am the following morning.

You poor thing. Do you know what it was that bit you? I'd like to keep a sharp look out for it lol

When it works properly it's excellent. Five years ago my cancerous kidney was removed a week after it was spotted on a CT scan. Brilliant as I wouldn't be here now if they'd not acted so fast.

However I had my annual urology review last week and whilst I've known that my remaining kidney wasn't performing optimally, it is stable. What I didn't know was it's stable 'score' was v low. In chatting to the new consultant he suggested I might like to see a nephrologist who will try and protect and maybe improve the kidney I have left. So why didn't anyone suggest that before? In effect there're been five years of opportunity wasted.

Was it to save money, lack of joined up thinking or urology being parochial?

It's not a National Health Service it's a postcode lottery.
What's worse for us is that here in Lincolnshire because the reputation is so bad they can't recruit medical staff
and so they're shutting down hospitals to make the system more efficient.
Lots of administrators running around busy doing nothing.

It's crazy !

Good luck to all

Cheers Ian

Quote: Rfjamieson1 wrote in post #2

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I had a completely different experience. My wife had chest pains, so called 111 Saturday morning, went through a number of questions, I was told to standby, and then was told an ambulance would be with us shortly. Within 5 or 6 minutes an ambulance AND a paramedic car turned up. 3 very cheery ambulance women then proceeded to do all sorts of tests on my wife, spending an hour or so fussing over her. Thankfully she was deemed ok, with no imminent heart attack, so they left, in good spirits. Amazing service, and in such contrast to yours Mike.

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