Today a mum comes in with a febrile child. I go through the protocol for controlling a high temp; removing clothes, cooling the room, opening a window and turning off the central heating, calpol and/or ibuprofen, and then dunking them in a cool bath., which is the standard practice in paediatric untis. If all that doesn't work they should enlist medical help.
"Oh, I did all that, doctor, but I phoned NHS Direct and they said I shouldn't be putting her in a cool bath"
Well that's new at any rate. More often they just advise patients to contact their own doctor, prompting some GPs to dub it "NHS Re-direct" This time they did actually offer advice, even though in this case it was wrong. One of Tony Blair's bright ideas,instituted at the dawn of New Labour's regime, NHS Direct has proved a spectacular failure and in my view should be wound up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment