Oversight in the Complaints System
If I do my job badly — if I lie, am aggressive, swear, refuse to co-operate, whatever — then a caller can put in a complaint about me.
If a caller does his “job” (that is, the “job” of being a concerned citizen, helping others, which I am sure you will agree is everybody’s job) badly, we just have to grin and bear it. So sometimes I imagine that all our callers have a very strict boss, and that when they misbehave, I can fill out a complaint form, and file it with their boss. I imagine the boss calling them into an office and saying “So, last night, you swore at a 999 call taker, then told her that your baby was not breathing, knowing full well that all was wrong with your baby was a runny nose. I’m afraid you’re going to have to be suspended without pay until a full enquiry is made. We will then inform you if you are allowed to continue your role as a member of the public or whether you will have to be locked in a cupboard for the rest of your life.”
Of course, it is a good job we cannot file complaints about members of the public really, because then we would be too busy doing so to send any ambulances.
on July 28th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
It’s a very nice fantasy though.
on July 28th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
And how many lives did that put at risk by having to make it a code red call? Fantasies apart, wouldnt it be nice if there was a “wasting ambulance service time” offence? Or better still - bill them.
on July 28th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
My wife is a social worker. Fortunatley, she is a good one, so it rarely happens, but complaints are made, about anyone in public service. Often in my wife’s job it is about warring husbands and wives, on the brink of divorce who want to use Social Services and their kids as pawns in the battle.
I reckon it would be a good idea if the bosses in these case were able to say “we will take you complaint seriously, investigate it fully and if you are right, deal severely with the wrongdoing officers. However, if you are full of shit, then you will be billed in full for the cost of the waste of our time!” Might save the taxpayer a few quid.
I run my own business, so my complaint procedure goes like ‘if you are right, then thanks, because I can learn from it, correct the problem and thrive. If you are trying it on, meet me in the carpark. After dark.’
on July 29th, 2006 at 2:40 am
Actually, although you try your best to do it, you will be complained by your “customers” ( In case of being a employee in a company). Why? You want to fulfil their needs, but you cannot. For example, the”customer” wants to talk to your boss, but he is aboard. Or maybe the “customer” wants to have some dishes which are cancelled in the menu a year ago. Then what can we do? We can read the warning letter carefully, and think about what we “have done”!
on July 29th, 2006 at 8:10 am
Ooh good one - might have to use that in my call centre job. I can think of several people, I’ve spoken to, that deserve to be locked in a cupboard.
on July 29th, 2006 at 8:54 am
It would be nice if they were logged. Perhaps the penalty for abusing a member of NHS staff in the manner you describe could be having to pay for any and all NHS treatment for 3 months/6 months/a year, taken out of their benefits if necessary.
After all, you have a phone number and you have an address, and the ambulance crew then take all sorts of other details, it couldn’t be that difficult to trace the people who abuse the system and say “ok, your house has now been blacklisted - for the next six months, if you call 999 we’ll come to you, but you will be charged £X for the callout. Your GP and dentist have been informed and you’ll have to pay £Y for an appointment plus extra for any treatment you may need, and of course you’ll have to pay for your prescriptions too. You’re on benefits? Tough. Your debt will be kept a record of and taken out of your benefit at a rate of £Z per week.”
Obviously there’d have to be a degree of discretion and some exceptions… for instance a diabetic who has had an ambulance called to them probably won’t even be aware they’re going off on one, has no element of choice in the matter, and needs to be excused, whereas the average person who’s stubbed their toe and is getting abusive because the ambulance has taken more than ten minutes to arrive has no excuse whatsoever.
on July 29th, 2006 at 11:49 am
It would be really nice if an Ambulance trust could send out official letters to some of these people, explaining why their actions are so wrong, the consequences of what they’ve done and in no uncertain terms whats going to happen if they try it again!
Because the happy nice people have made it a happy nice no blame culture, all the normal human beings have cottoned on pretty quick to having no consequences and therefore no worries about doing wrong.
on July 29th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
We will then inform you if you are allowed to continue your role as a member of the public
:-}
The problem with this wonderful idea, of course, is that people with heart attacks wouldn’t call because they’d be sure they were wasting everyone’s time, and the dingdongs with hangnails would still be screaming for their “right” to an ambulance.
on July 29th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
I work as a Coach at the Police control room. I encourage my calltakers to be assertive, Never rude but not to accept the demands of the public without verifying the situation after all if it is genuinly an emergency then it doesn’t take much to recognise that compared to the familier refrain “I want the police here Naaahh”, the person saying this is usually reporting something at least 20 minutes old and are safe in their own homes
.
Abusive to my staff? Time to get your horoscope read to you. We are not paid to be abused. Swearing is okay if the situation is stressful but never when directed at us with the intent to offend.
I have been working this way for 4 years, in this time I have been very forthright with a lot of people and told a great many of them things they didn’t want to hear. Complaints recieved about me from the public in that time…None.
-
Lesson? Be assertive, polite and helpful but take no Sh*t!
Oh and remember - When the public “Want a Policeman / Fireman / Ambulance right now” I want an ice lolly right now, looks like we are both going to be dissapointed doesn’t it?
on July 29th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
LOL I had the baby thing… the baby later happened to be 8 years old and breathing… I put it as a purple when it actually was a category B call. And yes she was horrible to me too. Glad to see I am not alone! Oh yeah and today I was called brainless too as I was gathering the caller’s address.
on July 30th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Just thought I’d let you know that I got into LAS. Chin up, people suck don’t they….still at least you don’t have to speak to them face to face, the ablity to just end the phonecall is one you should enjoy!!:-D
on July 30th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Congratulations! Alas, I wish we could end the phone call, but we’re not allowed to hang up until they do… and if they hang up on us, which they frequently do, we have to keep calling them back until either the ambulance arrives or we get to the end of the call!
on July 30th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
You must have the patient of a saint. The church of St. Myers EMD, praise be!
Just out if interest (yes another one like that), who runs/maintains the infrastructure of your call centre? Is it BT, somebody private or do you have LAS telecommunication bods?
on July 30th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
In my previous worklife working in retail someone walked up to a member of security who was working the door and complained that there were puddles in the car park (it had been raining for three days). Lynne asked the lady what she would like done about it and the customer said “Sweep the away”
It’s not just in the medical field you get people who are challenged in the
on July 30th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
i’d prefer the simple solution of an ambulance firearms unit. just a little snipers nest ontop of “the gherkin” staffed by an ambulanceman with keen eyesight and anger management issues. get the callers home address and “BANG!” another tragic and mysterious gang-land style execution… yeah i like that one.
on July 31st, 2006 at 1:38 am
“i’d prefer the simple solution of an ambulance firearms unit. just a little snipers nest ontop of “the gherkin” staffed by an ambulanceman with keen eyesight and anger management issues. get the callers home address and “BANG!” another tragic and mysterious gang-land style execution… yeah i like that one.”
It would cut down on response times as well!!! win-win.
on July 31st, 2006 at 6:47 am
What 998 and Rob said.
on August 3rd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
TRULY CRACKING
on August 3rd, 2006 at 7:16 pm
I’m also trying to get the suits to introduce an ambulance dog-unit. a while ago i heard that the dogs used in prisons are the ones “temperamentally unsuitable” for police dog training. now, if we could arrange to get our hands on some of the dogs too psychotic for PRISON dog traing then we’re on a winner. take all that rubbish out the back of the RRUs, stick a cage and a dog (or six) in its place. when we come across any scroungers its a simple call to control: “yeah, we got some scrote here control…. RELEASE THE HOUNDS!”
trust me, its a winner. THIS one will work.
on July 23rd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
I’ve made 2 successful complaints against the police from problems arising when the ambulance service called them. The emergency services can be utter sh*t!