A Complaint
Last weekend, at about 4am, I took a call from a middle aged man. He’d apparently been cooking his dinner and spilled some oil on the floor, slipped in it and banged his head, knocking himself out. When he’d come round, he’d called 999. There was nothing really unusual about the call, except the fact that the man had been cooking at 4am in the first place, so I didn’t really give it a second thought, until half an hour later another call came in from the same place. The same man was ranting and raving and calling the poor ambulance crew that had attended him all sorts of unpleasant words. I now realised that his slightly slurred speech that I had previously attributed to his knock on the head was actually due to drunkenness. Looking back, drunkenness was probably the reason that he had been cooking at 4am, and the reason he had spilled the oil and subsequently fallen in it. I checked the log and found the ambulance crew had left the scene because the patient had been “extremely abusive and threatening towards them”.
Trying to maintain a neutral approach (despite the fact that anyone who is inconsiderate enough to call 999 to make a complaint, potentially blocking an emergency call from getting through, is almost always in the wrong), I asked what had happened (I got no coherent answer), and explained that if he wanted another crew to attend we would have to sent a police escort because of the report from the first crew, but if that he felt that the first crew were at fault, I could provide him with the complaints department phone number. At this point, the caller (who had been nice as pie during the first call) turned on me and started calling me all sorts of names not suitable for publication on this blog. He demanded to be put through to my supervisor, and, when I explained my supervisor did not deal with complaints and was tied up trying to locate a RTA call from a person who didn’t know where he was, he demanded to be put through to Gordon Brown, as apparently Gordon Brown is my Big Boss. I explained that we weren’t actually located in Downing Street and that Gordon Brown was asleep. I offered the complaints department number once again. The caller refused to take it, and demanded to be put through. Why should he pay for the phone call to make a complaint? I pointed out that they were closed, and I could put him through if he liked, but he’d just get the answerphone. “PUT ME THROUGH NOW!” he bellowed, and not one to refuse a caller’s request, I did.
“This is the complaints department of the LAS. The department is open 9-5, Monday to Friday. Please leave your name and number after the tone.”
I decided to stay on the line message the caller left, partly in case he started issuing death threats or anything else we should be aware of, and partly out of sheer nosiness. It was 4am on Sunday so there weren’t any calls waiting. It went something like this:
“I’ve just had one of your crews round and they were ***** and ***** and *********! They didn’t know what they were doing. They were just jealous because I live in one of the best houses in [an unglamorous, suburban part of London]! I pay my taxes! I demand Gordon Brown does something about this service! And that ********* person I just spoke to has put me through to the wrong number. I wanted the boss, not an answerphone! ****** and ********! You’re all useless!”
And it went on for another five minutes or so, until the automated voice cut in and said “Thank you. Your message has been recorded. Goodbye”.
In all that time, he still hadn’t given his name or contact details. Oh dear.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
The best part is this guy actually takes himself seriously. No wonder he (presumably) lives alone. In a way this post is hilarious and in another way it’s very sad these characters exist, yet alone actually believe they’re sane and rational.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Mark
What LAS complaints department are you talking about? The only “complaint” line we have is through PALS and they deal with many different enquiries even down to what hospital was my mother taken to. Therefore I don’t believe PALS answer machine would say anything like that. I realise you have a certain poetic licence, but surely as you are officially an LAS representative, you wouldn’t make stuff up just to spice up your blog?
And in these sorts of situations, when the caller is demanding to speak to a supervisor, and your ctc is busy, surely you should be passing them to your call taking OCM to deal with. If this tact doesn’t work, then you could follow LAS Urgent Disconnect Protocol and again offer the PALS numbers and opening times and then tell him that you have many calls waiting and you need to answer them, if he gets worse or anything changes call us back blah blah blah and then terminate the call.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
No, there’s a separate complaints department number. I think it’s called PSU (professional standards - unit?) but I wasn’t sure of the name and anyway people understand “complaints department” better. Their answerphone says just what I wrote, maybe not word for word, but that is the gist of it. I can get you the number if you don’t believe me
PALS don’t deal with complaints, only enquiries.
It’s been a long time since I was at training school and I am not a regular on call taking, so protocol may have changed, but I was told to only bother management with complaint-type calls if it was something urgent that needed to be sorted out before office hours (eg. an ongoing situation where we hadn’t sent an ambulance yet). Yes, I could have done the urgent disconnect thing, but what the caller wanted was to be transferred to the complaints department, and that is what he got.
PS. Found this page which has the department in question on it, though it doesn’t say what the U stands for!
PPS. Would also like to make it clear that I am not an official LAS representative. Nee Naw is unendorsed by the LAS and represents the views and experiences of myself alone, etc.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Most of the “I want to make a complaint” calls I take, they object to every possible option given then end up claiming I called them…
on October 22nd, 2007 at 5:09 pm
so the page youve tagged does infact show that its pals and not complaints department or psu that would have dealt with your caller as lasemd correctly stated , havent had psu for a bit , pals deals with the public, archives with the police , take it it wasnt busy that shift then as you had time to unproffesionally listen in on the callers ( all be it probably unfounded )complaint
on October 22nd, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Did you actually read it? It says “if you are not happy about something, but you do not want to make a complaint straightaway, you can speak to the PALS officer. Every NHS Trust and primary care trust (PCT) has a Patient Advice and Liaison Service. They are not part of the official complaints procedure.” Then it gives the complaints department details:
Complaints Department
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust
The Mall
Kenton
Middlesex
HA3 9TD
Tel: 020 8727 1484
Fax: 020 8727 1459
(voicemail number 020 7921 5277)
PSU@lond-amb.nhs.uk
See?
And yes, it was quiet (jt was 4am on Sunday morning!) so I had time to listen in. I don’t see what was unprofessional about it - I wanted to see what he was going to say to forewarn the desk/other call takers if he was going to call in again. What if he’d started making threats to kill any other ambulance who attended, and I’d not bothered listening in, and we’d ended up sending another crew?
Please stop heckling!!
on October 22nd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
im sorry i should have read the whole page youre right, but if you dont want peoples honest opinions , replys and comments perhaps you shouldnt invite us to comment, you are allowed your view and we are allowed ours
on October 22nd, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Vic, not only do they exist, they breed too.
SD
on October 22nd, 2007 at 9:28 pm
a n other,
Maybe you should check your facts twice before jumping on someone’s blog under a pseudonym and attacking them for being unprofessional?
Armchair ambulance officers/calltakers/policemen annoy me.
Just because Mark invites us to comment doesn’t mean he should have to sit back and take baseless and uneducated attacks against him.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 9:39 pm
I’m interested to read the above comments. I was wondering how you managed to listen in to a call that you had transfered. How do you listen in once you have pressed transfer as this automatically removes the call from your line. You must have conferenced yourself into the call in order to listen in and this is against LAS Policy.
I would also perhaps question the data protection act of telling the caller about what the ctc was dealing with.
As for the heckling comment to a n other, it’s a shame that you ended like this. It makes it sound as though you couldn’t find anything better to say or that you don’t want people to question things you say. As a n other says, by having a comments section, it makes for an open forum.
And you are a representative of the LAS simply by saying you work for them. Although you have a disclaimer, as do all LAS blogs, you are representing the service as well as it’s visions and values.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 10:12 pm
its only in breach of the act iif the data disclosed was able to be used to identify the persons involved
on October 22nd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
For God’s Sake everyone! Do you honestly think that he would put someones life at risk just to ‘nose in’ on what a drunken idiot has to say at 4 am in the morning! Don’t complain untill you understand what these people do, and next time before you start moaning READ THE POST first!!!
Also, Craig D, I was just wandering why armchair ambulance officers/calltakers/policemen annoy you? I’m not having a go at all, I was just interested!
on October 22nd, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Chill out fools! This is a blog not an investigation into the ins and outs of procedure! I can call you for 20 mins and swear at you if you like, see how you handle it? relax! If you dont like the content of this great insight into the LAS, read something else!
on October 22nd, 2007 at 10:44 pm
LASEMD: yes, I used “conference” instead of “transfer” in order to listen in to the call. I wasn’t aware this was against LAS policy (perhaps you could point me at the relevant document?) and should management question it, I would be happy to explain my reasons (crew safety, as explained above).
Re: data protection act, the data protection act prevents us giving information that identifies the patient. I didn’t even get as far as explaining what the CTC was doing beyond “busy” since I wasn’t getting a word in edgeways, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have contravened data protection.
You said I was an “official LAS representative” and I wanted to make it clear that this was not an *official* LAS blog as I have been in touch with the media dept about my blog and one thing they were very clear on was that I must not write as if this is an official LAS blog. So I just wanted to make that point clear for any readers who might be misled by your comment. I do agree I am representing the LAS, but in an unofficial/personal way.
Heckling: Though I invite comments on this blog, it doesn’t mean you can say exactly what you like! Reasoned debate, even when it gets heated (for instance, the maternataxi discussion on the lightbulb post) is all very welcome, even when I don’t agree with the comments. Accusations, such as “you just made that up to spice up your blog” and “that was unprofessional” are NOT welcome.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I need a ambulance, i’ve got a head injury. my wife has slapped the back of my head for laughing too loud and waking her up.
on October 22nd, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Quick, send HEMS!
on October 23rd, 2007 at 8:57 am
That’s a bit worrying. Aren’t aggressiveness and inability to control mood sometimes symptoms of serious concussion? I know our accident compensation services have something that boils down to ’stupidly aggressive and slurring speech’ as a warning sign that serious head injury may have occurred.
And don’t concussed people sometimes sound pretty drunk as well as offensive? Slurred speech and drunken behaviour can be caused by more than just alcohol, and drunk people who are concussed are surely even less in control of their emotions than sober concussed people.
Did anyone check up on him the next day? Or later that night?
I get that if he was a threat to the people who arrived to help, they would have needed to leave, but I hope someone checked on him later to make sure he was alive.
on October 23rd, 2007 at 8:58 am
It could have been worse - he could have set the house on fire and then he would have had the fire brigade to abuse as well.
Oul eejit.
on October 23rd, 2007 at 9:37 am
*quote* That’s a bit worrying. Aren’t aggressiveness and inability to control mood sometimes symptoms of serious concussion?
I hope someone checked on him later to make sure he was alive.*/quote*
hahaha you seriously think the ambulance service has the resources to send crews round to check up on abusive drunks? opps I mean potentially life threatening head injuries.
Are you a doctor Smith? Do you realise that if you are threatening and abusive in an Accident and Emergency - requiring medical attention or not - they have the right to refuse to treat you and have you removed from the department. The same goes for Ambulance staff.
Mark - by conferencing the call you were just being nosey - concerned about crew safety indeed!!
on October 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 am
I don’t know about the LAS, but in Police-speak PSU is definitely Professional Standards Unit, so I image the U is indeed Unit in this case too.
Oh, and I’m also not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that the DPA only relates to personally identifiable information; I really can’t see how telling someone what a colleague is doing without mentioning explicit details would violate it.
on October 23rd, 2007 at 10:19 am
Superman,
“Armchair commandos” of all flavours (who seem to gravitate to journalism positions ;-]) end up influencing policy and can make people’s lives very hard.
Here in NZ a few weeks ago, a police officer shot dead a person who was about to attack him with a hammer. Talkback radio, newspapers, etc were filled with all kinds of ignorant opinions. “It’s just a hammer” and “he should have used a fancy judo trick/ shot him in the 3rd knuckle on the left hand / used a trash can lid to gladiator fight with them.”
a n other’s comment appeared to me to be quite uninformed, and they were in an awful rush to judge Mark. I’m imagining LASEMD is either new or a manager - I don’t think many officers would bat an eyelid at Mark’s actions.
Seriously, he took an angry call, put it onto the complaints line and listened to it. Anyone else not think this is the end of the world?
LASEMD - “Smith” was questioning, genuinely asking a question without insults. a n other just blathered in here, not knowing what he’s talking about, and calling Mark unprofessional. “Open forum” my arse, of course Mark can respond to criticism, especially when it’s not founded.
on October 23rd, 2007 at 11:41 am
Smith - I don’t know what the ambulance crew did while they were on scene (as the caller wouldn’t tell me and I didn’t speak to the crew myself), but I presume they had examined him enough to conclude there were no life threatening injuries before he became threatening and they left. In situations where a patient is in a potentially life threatening condition, crews don’t just leave, they withdraw and wait around the corner while we fetch the police and/or a manager to back them up. That said, if he’d asked for another ambulance one would have been sent (with a police escort) but he turned this down when I offered it. Sharon is right - we just don’t have the resources to go round checking on people without being asked and when they’ve already had an ambulance out once.
on October 23rd, 2007 at 11:47 am
I’m imagining LASEMD is either new or a manager
I think LASEMD is either new or works for the training department. He/she gave this away by using the phrase “visions and values” without a hint of irony and the frequent references to “protocol” and “policy”, all of which are things we were spoonfed at training school. Not knowing about the complaints department or how the data protection act works, and (correctly) calling the superintendent an OCM (they just changed the name and most of us are taking a while to catch up) probably means he/she is new.
on October 23rd, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Will you be giving any of the newbies in your office the ’suspicious eye’ Mark?
on October 23rd, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I am concerned about the remarks made in this entry
on October 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Will you be giving any of the newbies in your office the ’suspicious eye’ Mark?
Nah… they’ll learn. I’m sure I was equally insufferable when I was fresh out of training school. Fortunately, I didn’t have this blog then!
on October 24th, 2007 at 12:25 am
“Armchair Quarterbacking” is the delightful phrase Americans use for people like A N Other, LASEMD and DABOSS. People who haven’t been in a similar situation but are more than happy to wade in with unjustified ill-advised and counterproductive criticism.
Useless, the lot of them.
on October 24th, 2007 at 2:17 am
I really think we’ve shot ourselves in the foot as a society when it comes to complaints.
“The customer is always right” idea has given us a generation that thinks it’s their right to complain. Not because something is wrong, but because they just don’t like it, or they think they can get something out of it.
When people try and help then get abuse and complaints, why are we even listening? Recently did my media training and you’re taught that in interviews about complaint the first thing you do is make a non commital apology. It’s sickening, because what you really want to say is “yes, we cracked a couple of ribs, but we saved your husbands life!”
Then again, I don’t think they’ll ever put me in the complaints department. Telling people they are more than welcome to excersise their consumer rights and choose to call another A&E service, might not be “best practice”.
on October 24th, 2007 at 10:42 am
I’m nothing whatsoever to do with LAS or the emergency services, but I do have an entire career’s worth of experience in customer relations (10 years already and I’m not even 30 yet!).
The vast majority of companies seem to have the “customer is always right” policy, which can be utterly soul destroying when you know damn well they’re wrong but you still smile politely, send them out compensation and a grovelling apology for someone else doing their job exactly as they should be.
My current job has the advantage of recording every single call that is made or received (for quality monitoring and training purposes). There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when some utter doughnut is ranting at you, claiming you’ve lost them hundreds of pounds worth of work by failing to give them information and/or providing incorrect details… Only to check the call and hear your colleague give out all the information in a very clear voice. The sweetness of being able to say,
“I’m sorry, but that’s just not the case - would you like me to send you a copy of the call involved?” is not something I’ll ever stop appreciating!
That said, there’s one guy who springs to mind who, on presented with this recorded evidence, sent it straight back with a “well, you’ve obviously tampered with the recording because I never said that” despite having just listened to himself being abusive for a good 10 minutes and reducing a staff member to tears. *sigh*
Oh, and if the PSU complaints department works anything like the ones I’ve worked in, they’ll listen to the call, listen to it some more, stop laughing and write a brief report (at most) before binning it. No contact details = nothing to do.
(sorry for the long post)
on October 24th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Do people not have enough to do - seriously this is a great blog, and I think serves a great public service that has nothing to do with internal policy and procedures. This is infotainment not an LAS intranet!
The guy was clearly drunk/derranged, he could have been saying all sorts of things as Mark says, including presumably, in that state, to hurt himself.
Great blog Mark, and don’t let people who clearly don’t know what a blog is spoil one of my favourite displacement activities
on October 25th, 2007 at 5:43 am
paulo: I’m assuming “DABOSS” was joking (judging from the email address he used!) The others are just hecklers, and thanks for your nice comments everyone. Don’t worry, I won’t let them bother me!
on October 30th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Mark,
People like this are part of the problem “I’ve got a lot of money so I can treat everyone else like shit.”
The temptation is to cut them off, and I don’t mean mid sentence. The trouble is, the craven end of Management never backs you up in case they get sued. You have my sympathies.
Regards
Bill
on November 2nd, 2007 at 2:01 am
yikes…drunks are pretty much all alike!! This would be even funnier if it wasn’t so sad to be true!!!!
on February 2nd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Thanks for sharing
on February 7th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
on March 11th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Now that was interesting. I’ve recently been short-listed for the role as an Emergency Medical Dispatcher, and I must admit that in some way if I do get the job I know there will definately be a call like this waiting at the end of my line. Being a person who’s worked long in customer services there always is.
Nice blog by the way, keep up the good work.
on May 13th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Well I have to live alongside two paramedics who get so drunk they cant walk up the stairs.Paramedics saints. Rubbish they are just as guilty of anti -social behaviour. Leaving their bikes supplied by the taxpayer not the LAs unattended for up to two hours while they have lunch. great job. Shame on you leaving a vulnerable member of society to possibly inflict damage on themselves. How dare you play God. Furthermore your paramedic mates being my neighbours have parties in the morning until 4am and have no respect for anyone. Shame on you
on May 17th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
… and of course, because your paramedic neighbours happen to be inconsiderate idiots, ALL paramedics are idiots and shame on all of us (including me, despite the fact I am not a paramedic - I work with them so I must be just as bad!) Because your neighbours are idiots, some other paramedics ten miles away should allow themselves to be beaten up by a drunk, abusive patient just to restore the reputation of paramedic kind. I love your logic!