NHS call centre is a backwards step
What has our National Health Service come to when non-medical call centre staff, in a remote location, are engaged to ask a great number of irrelevant questions religiously working from a '˜tick box' list (we were standing outside the A&E department at St Richard's Hospital, Chichester, at the time).
When the call centre operative returned our call she said she was in Dorking, Surrey, and wasn’t even aware of how many hospitals there are in Chichester – needless to say, that inspired confidence in this lame,
sub-standard and cumbersome service!
All was well when we eventually did get to see the out-of-hours doctor at St Richard’s Hospital. We urgently need to return to a system whereby the call is directed to a medical professional in the first instance and not non-medical call centre staff who are just ‘tick box’ operatives hell bent on asking you the complete list of irrelevant questions on their list.
It will be a sad and retrograde step when this system is inflicted nationally.
Nigel H Potter
Gospond Road
Barnham