Out of Hours

Sounds normal unfortunately. I have been in my incurable blood cancer journey rather a long time and not much has changed over the years when it comes to out of hours and weekends.

I have to say that 111 usually do come up with the goods but at times we have to be very persuasive especially when it turned out to be Pneumonia, Neutropenic Sepsis and a heart attack.

The NHS system is massively underfunded 

I'm sorry to hear of your struggle to obtain fast care for your mum.  Usually palliative care community services affiliated with a local hospice or hospital are available 7days a week and maybe could have sped things up for you.  GPs only ever work 5 days a week.  Through 111 you can get a GP but they cover such a wide area.  The system doesn't work very well for sure.  Access to a doctor out of hours hasn't improved in years.  

So it's worth getting a palliative community nurse attached to your mum's care if you haven't got one already.  It maybe sponsored by Macmillan or sponsored by a local hospice.  But both have the same knowledge and can be a great support.  I'm not sure what else there is, sorry.  Hope your mum gets to be comfortable and pain free hon xxxx

Perhaps I am very lucky but I have something called a red card 

I can call this anytime. Maximum assistance time is 15 min

i have only used this twice

once during the week at 1am which was answered instantly and the other Sunday daytime which was a 5 min call back

maybe your hospital has a service like this

DiMac said:

How to stay sane throughout and not be rude and obnoxious to the people on the other end of the phone?  

Being rude and obnoxious to the people at the other end of the phone is not going to help and in fact targets the wrong people, who are there taking care of call after call after call, doing their best on 12-hours shifts, often with not enough colleagues in the area to respond fast enough to all the incoming calls. That said, I understand your frustration. As a cancer patient I have been in exactly the same position at exactly the same times of the night/week, and it was scary and frustrating to be left like this with no timely help. 

By the way, the reason they ask the same questions again and again is a "safety net" both to verify existing data and to catch any change in a patient's condition, and is done to maximise patient safety. 

Regarding how to get help, unfortunately the system is broken, so the best I can think of would be to talk to your mother's nurse about this. Whenever I was in trouble overnight and couldn't get help, I got in touch with my nurse first thing in the morning, and bar one time she was always able to do something effective. The weekends are something I was never able to solve, and I have been dealing with cancer for nearly two years now. Like you, I kept saying that only having access to real help during office hours is bitterly laughable.

Hi i know what you mean when you need help or advice in an emergency its usually  on the weekend or on a Friday night, and being asked the same questions over and over again is a joke, like can the patient watch TV , God knows what that is all about maybe they  were on to us because we never had a TV licence lol