Second opinion

RECENTLY, while on duty at the week- end, I had — for legal reasons which I need not detail — to call upon the ser- vices of a social worker. I therefore dialled the number for out-of-hours referrals to the social services.

`Hello,' said a recorded voice. 'You have reached the Emergency Duty Team. The office is only open out of office hours. It is now closed. Thank you and goodbye.'

Did I detect a subtle note of malicious triumph in that thank you and goodbye? I rather fancy I did.

What was I to do now? It was an emergency, and it was out of hours. I was stumped, but then I remembered the fax machine. I scrawled a note and tried to send it to the Emergency Duty Team's fax number. After a few minutes of fruit- less ringing, my fax machine printed the following report: 'No contestant'.

I phoned a neighbouring borough's social services to ask for help and advice.

`You could always get the police to go round,' they said.

Surely the police had better things to do than that — victim support, for example?

Much later in the day, I succeeded in getting through. I complained about the time it took. `What number did you use, doctor?' asked the social worker.

I told him.

`Oh no,' he said. 'That's just for the public. You should have used the profes- sionals' number.'

`I didn't know what it was,' I said.

`No, we haven't told anyone yet,' he replied. 'But we're going to soon.'

I compose many letters of complaint in my head, but rarely get round to send- ing them. On this occasion, however, I did write to the director of social services himself. He, of course, passed it on to someone else to answer, who began his letter: 'First I should like to apologise for the lengthy delay in answering your let- ter — I cannot understand why it has taken a month to reach my office.

`I gather you were told by recorded message that the Emergency Duty Team was not available. This issue was identi- fied later that day. This was caused by the failure of a member of staff to log in the public telephone number to the com- puterised system at the beginning of the shift. The difficulty was rectified and procedures are now in place to ensure that the difficulty does not re-occur.'

Is this the language in which people actually think? No wonder patients quite often ask me to take their thoughts away.

`You advised that you had not received information regarding the tele- phone number to Social Services Emer- gency Duty Team for use by other professional agencies. In fact, some delays were experienced in sending let- ters of information.'

By whom were the delays experienced, I wonder? Not by me, because I was completely unaware that any such num- ber existed and was due to be distribut- ed. It is all very curious.

`You advised that the Emergency Duty Team fax number was switched off, but I cannot understand how this situation could have arisen because the fax num- ber is never switched off.'

I think it was Aristotle — though I can't positively swear that it was — who said that whatever happens must be pos- sible, but then of course Aristotle knew nothing of social services.

Theodore Dalrymple