Son's anger at failure of out-of-hours GP service (From Gazette & Herald)

Son's anger at failure of out-of-hours GP service

A SON was outraged when he could not get an 'on-call' doctor for his 90-year-old mother on a Bank Holiday this Christmas.

David Porter's mother Sarah Jane lives with him in Thornton-le-Dale. When she got a sickness bug on the morning of December 27 he telephoned their local GP, as advised by the Scarborough Whitby Ryedale Primary Care Trust (PCT), which recently took over responsibility for out-of-hours health care.

Calls to GPs' surgeries are now automatically transferred to a call centre for North Yorkshire Emergency Doctors (NYED) who are contracted to provide the service.

"The whole system went into meltdown and I couldn't get a doctor for my mother," said Mr Porter.

He tried 12 times to get through to the call centre. "On eight occasions I obtained the engaged signal. When I did get through I heard female voices but no one answered the call. The next time that I got through it appeared that female voices were shouting. I kept saying 'hello' and then a female answered. I asked what was going on and the line went dead. The last time I telephoned an automatic voice said that there was a temporary fault on the line. Being persistent, I telephoned the number of NHS Direct, where an automated recording said that due to the high demand for calls, could I ring later."

A spokesman for the Scarborough Whitby and Ryedale PCT said: "Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale PCT can confirm that NYED experienced difficulties with their BT operated telephone system on the morning of Monday, December 27.

"As a consequence of this BT fault the service was temporarily unavailable. The PCT, in accordance with procedure, contacted the Minor Injuries Units at Malton and Whitby, and the Accident and Emergency Department at Scarborough General Hospital to inform them of these difficulties. Normal service was resumed and the fault identified was rectified. We can only apologise for what was an exceptional technical failure in a system beyond our control, and beyond the control of NYED."

But Mr Porter said: "My concern is for the elderly people living alone in Thornton-le-Dale who do not have someone there, and who would not be so persistent.

"Even the care worker who visited that day said that my mother needed to see a doctor," he added. He said he had been advising his elderly neighbours that, if they cannot get through to the call centre, they should dial 999.

Updated: 11:56 Wednesday, January 05, 2005