Government Swine Flu helpline 'worse than useless'

Healthworkers have described the Swine Flu Helpline as being "worse than useless." This was brought to the attention of That's News by a healthcare worker who wishes to remain anonymous.

"I work in a healthcare facility and it is likely that I will, at some point, come into contact with someone who has Swine Flu. I felt so ill this morning that I wondered if I might have contracted Swine Flu. I phoned my workplace and was advised not to attend work and that I should phone the NHS Swine Flu Helpline for information and advice. Until I called the number I was under the impression that I would be able to speak to a health adviser who would be able to help me identify if I might have Swine Flu, or not. Instead I was annoyed to find that it is just a recorded message giving some very generic advice and of no help at all. Ironic for a helpline', I thought."

She went on to say: "The recorded message advised me to call NHS Direct, which I did. Only to be told that, due to heavy use of the service, there would be a delay of at least four hours before my query could be dealt with."

She then tried the NHS Swine Flu website, only to find that it was an on screen version of the Swine Flu Helpline. So was equally unhelpful. "The NHS Direct Swine Flu website was not helpful. All it kept doing was looping visitors round and round through several not particularly helpful parts of the website. I wanted to know how to be diagnosed if I had Swine Flu, but the advice was not to visit your doctor or your accident and emergency department, so there seems to be several gaps in the system, which people will fall through. I wondered if the anti-virals might be available.

"But the only thing I was able to find out was that they should be available, but that it was up to each individual Health Authority area how, exactly, they were to deliver them to the people with Swine Flu. In some areas you had to collect them from your doctor's surgery, in some from a designated pharmacy, whilst in some areas you had to stay at home and wait for someone to deliver the anti-virals to your home, or you had to send a so-called 'Flu Friend" to pick them up from some distribution point."

The healthcare worker pointed out: "I have worked in healthcare for a number of years and computer literate. And not feeling desperately poorly. But imagine if you are an elderly person who feels really desperately ill? Locum Services in some area often have one doctor covering two counties so are unable to offer any help. And why should someone who is seriously ill have to sit, feeling ill, by their phone for over four hours, waiting for a call back from someone who might, or equally, might not, be able to offer them the help and advice that they need?

It would appear obvious that the much-trumpeted NHS Swine Flu stratergy is nothing but a cynical PR exercise and that obtaining the help and advice that one needs is, generally speaking, impossible.