Swine Flu – let’s panic!

Ok, my wife got it, then our daughter and then finally our baby son and I. My wife called the local NHS  number to get Tamiflu for herself. Easy peasy, no problems.

By the time I got the flu the National Pandemic Flu Service was ready to spoil my day!

I knew not to expect an expert medically trained person on the end of the line, but I didn’t expect to get a really daft computer script either. It should have been simple. I knew I had the virus as I was feeling crap and at 30-odd years of age you kind of know when you are coming down with flu or a cold.

First few questions basically check that you are still alive. Things like “can you breathe ok?”, “have you got trouble waking up?” etc.

After question number six the computer decides I’m fine and don’t have the flu. Huh? We didn’t even get as far as “do you have a cough?” or “do you have a temperature?”, we only established that I have a pulse. But the computer says – no flu.

I ask the lady to give it another go. We try it one more time. Same questions, same answers. This time the computer says I need to dial 999. What?

I ask the lady to try one more time. This time we get through what feels like a thousand questions. Mostly stuff like “do you take drug x?”, “do you take drug y?” etc. At the end of this I get diagnosed with swine flu. Fine. Why did it take three attempts?

Now it is time to go through the questions for my 16 month old son. You guessed it, computer decided he needs to be rushed to A&E too. I handed the phone over to my wife at that point. She got the operator to restart the questionnaire one more time. Eventually we got his Tamiflu authorisation number too and all was sorted out.

Now, I don’t know if the clearly ridiculous advice to dial 999 was down to a glitch in the call centre computer script or if it was down to operator error, but if my experience is anything to go by I will not be surprised if the NHS A&E departments are soon flooded.