NHS 119 phone number

Oh. And I also called my surgery... no interest there, obviously!

I had 12 attempts to contact my local CCG and finally gave up.

I feel your pain (as they say).
I had three promises from real people of a call back (no-one did call) and every other time except one I was able to leave a message on an answerphone.
I was hoping mad but have decided to accept it.

3 real people and 8 answerphone messages. No interest.

Littleannie. I am being nominated for the Tenacious NHS Phone Queuer of the Year Award ... your call is important to us ... you are 55th in the queue ... but I hung on nonetheless. Still Fort Knox here too. Best you can get in person is being shouted out through a glass door by a harrassed receptionist telling you to go away.

Good point about the potential for mis-pinging. Sod's Law says that will happen. I'd delete the app.

Jaffacake2. It shouldn't but that did make me laugh. Call 119. You are 119. Oh yeah, so I am!

We have slipped into the realm of farce. Whoops there goes ... not my trousers but any sense of being able to make sense of any of this.

I phoned 119 at the beginning of the vaccine programme as I had been refused the jab at local hub due to history of anaphylaxis.
The call handler could have been in a Month Python sketch ! Disinterested,didn't know, wasn't sure but suggested phoning 119 for advice.
" But that's your number love " I replied.
" Oh right well I don't know "
End of conversation.

To be able to even get through on the phone to your surgery is quite an achievement Flexagon. Ours is still locked up like Fort Knox!
I have no complaints about our 1st and 2nd vaccinations, which were done with military efficiency.
But as they have my phone number recorded against somebody else (as well as me), I'm just hoping they don't ping ME to isolate if this other person is in contact with an infected person!

So do I, Littleannie! To be fair, NHS have had to set up a system to vaccinate the entire adult population very quickly and there are bound to be glitches.

Staff on the phones at 119 sound young, inexperienced, have probably had scant training and don't seem to know how to handle any query that is out of the ordinary. Except neither yours nor mine were. You've sent me someone else's appointment and where's the record of my first jab?

The thing that irritates me most about this is my GP surgery's practice manager who am told is the only person other than a doctor who can alter my record but steadfastly won't help and I can't figure out why?

Thank you Infinity2 and Shropshirelass for your kind comments.
Flexagon- what a mess. It never ceases to amaze me how big organisations get things in such a mess, and then seem unable to sort it out. I hope you get your certificate in time!

I'm surprised how unjoined-up the NHS vaccine information systems are.

I booked online appointments for my two jabs. The first one was done in March. I have the date, type and batch number recorded on the small blue card.

About two weeks before the second in May, I received an automated email cancelling the appointment. It proved impossible to rebook the second online.

I was told by 119 they had no record of my first vaccination and that's why my second appointment had been auto-cancelled (you can't have a second without a first) and that's why I couldn't rebook the second online.

They said I had to sort it out with my GP but the practice manager is uninterested as I had the first at a vaccination hub and not at their surgery (as I didn't qualify to have it there.) The practice manager refused to allow me to have the second at the surgery so I was left in limbo.

In the end, in May, I went to a walk-in day at the same vaccination hub to see if I could get the second done. No problem with that. They confirmed they had a record of my first vaccination so now I have two dates and two vaccinations recorded on my blue card.

However, the NHS App is only recording my second. It does say 2 of 2 but I have, so far, been unable to get a Covid pass via the app because that system is not showing 1 of 2.

I now need to go to something at the end of the month where the building management say they want to see a Covid pass and won't accept the blue card.

Yesterday, I called 119 again, fully expecting them to say they have no record of vaccine number one but they do! They say they are sending me a paper pass in five working days BUT they cannot explain why vaccine number one it is not recorded on the app. Furthermore, they don't know how to rectify this other then to tell me to go back to my GP. I tried that today and they are still uninterested.

Hmm. I suspect this is something to do with the person at the hub who was recording my first on a laptop and supposed to fill out the blue card. I said and spelt my simple four letter surname four times and she still looked puzzled. (In frustration, the person who gave the injection took the blank card from her and filled it in.)

Having worked in data processing. I have a sneaky feeling that the name she entered on the laptop and my NHS number did not match and have thrown up an anomaly in a batch processing system somewhere, a system that doesn't join up to the booking system or app.

Fingers crossed the paper Covid pass arrives in time.

I sympathise with you LittleAnnie. You were trying to be helpful but having had some experience of these unjoined up systems I can see how it might happen that someone on the end of 119 can't help with a booking query.

You did more than some people would have done, well done for trying.

Littleannie - what a shame !

You deserve a medal though for jumping through the hoops trying to sort it all out ?