A seriously ill pensioner who called NHS 111 was given the number for Tesco instead of a pharmacy.
Sally Jones described her mum Julia Jago’s experience with the service as ‘horrifying’ and ‘farcical’.
The 89-year-old, from Ashford, Kent, phoned after throwing up brown liquid and struggling to keep food down for days.
She was given a telephone number which the operator said was for a nearby chemist, but when Sally dialled it went through to the supermarket’s customer services line instead.
Mrs Jones told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘I phoned [the number] and got a recorded message which said “we cannot give you any information on store openings or stock”.’
When she eventually found the right number, the pharmacy suggested giving her mum some water so she decided to take her to A&E.
It turned out Mrs Jago’s intestine was blocked by a stent which had dislodged.
Her daughter said she spent four days in the emergency department because all the wards were full and remains in hospital awaiting surgery.
She said: ‘If I hadn’t got my wits about me to take her in, somebody wouldn’t have done it, and she would have been, I don’t know, that’s just really unforgivable.
‘She needed to go on a drip, she was dehydrated. I mean, eventually she would have died if she hadn’t gone in.’
Mrs Jones said staff at the William Harvey Hospital were doing their best while working ‘up against a rock and a hard place’.
Sarah Shingler, chief nursing and midwifery officer, at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, apologised to Mrs Jago and her family ‘for the delay she experienced in being transferred to a ward following treatment in our emergency department’.
She said the ward ‘is seeing sustained levels of high demand’ but insisted that where he is a delay ‘staff continuously review patient care to ensure they are safely cared for until they are admitted’.
A spokesman for South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which runs NHS 111 services in the area, also apologised and invited the pensioner or her family to get in touch directly so their concerns can be looked into ‘in detail’.
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