Wrong number

A few years ago British Telecom altered the dialling code for London, from the simple and unforgettable 01 to the challengingly obscure 0171 for inner London (where most people work) and 0181 for outer London (where most people live). A week later a leading London teaching hospital changed its telephone number, with the result that it is now identical to my own except for the 0171 prefix.

This fortuitous sequence of events continues to provide me with real time evidence of why people telephone their local hospital. First and foremost seems to be lost relatives. The number of aunties, spouses, and elderly neighbours who fail to return home by sundown suggests that public money would be well spent on the nosocomial equivalent of the mountain rescue service. At 6 o'clock every evening a team of bearded men in fluorescent jackets, armed with stretchers and flasks of strong tea, could scour outpatient departments and hospital pharmacies in search of those trusting souls who obeyed instructions to “sit down over there in the corner, sir/madam; someone will see to you shortly.”

Next comes requests for medical advice. Admittedly, my impressions are based on a highly skewed sample (those callers too distressed or gormless either to dial the right number or to ring off when told they have the wrong one). Nevertheless, it is startling how many members of the public seem to believe that the voice on the hospital switchboard equates with a valid and reliable medical opinion. Advice is often sought on routine follow up procedures (“we're not sure how long the stitches should stay in”), action for toys, condiments, and items of stationery ingested by toddlers, and morning after contraception (or, more accurately, postcoital counselling at around 1 30 am).

Thirdly, there are complaints. Indeed, you get the impression that the same individuals who assume it is the doctor who answers the telephone when they wish to divulge their medical histories also assume that they automatically get through to the management when they have a grievance about service delivery. There seems to be a folk belief in a large, leather bound volume held in the switchboard office containing the names and dates of all forthcoming operations or appointments. Thus, requests such as “could you look my husband up on the waiting list for his hernia?” are perceived to be achievable in seconds and at all hours of the day and night.

Finally, and most rarely, there are the calls from that diminishing breed of polite citizens who phone up to thank the hospital for care and attention bestowed on themselves or their loved ones, regardless of the outcome or the time taken to achieve it. The other day, when on call, I answered the phone with the words, “Hello, Dr Greenhalgh here,” and received the uplifting response, “Doctor Green Thing, I think you're marvellous. You're all marvellous. And if Bill was alive he'd say so, too.”