2 photos that show why doctors have branded Jeremy Hunt's latest advice 'ludicrous'

One is an image of a child with meningococcal septicaemia and the other is a child with Henoch–Schönlein purpura

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A photo shared on Twitter of different skin rashes
One is an image of a child with meningococcal septicaemia and the other is a child with Henoch–Schönlein purpura. One is a condition that kills a child in matter of hours without emergency life-saving treatment and the other, with treatment, would likely recover.
Can you spot the difference?
This is a question being asked by doctors to highlight how lives could be "at risk” from Jeremy Hunt’s suggestion that parents could save time by searching online to determine the severity of their children’s rash.
Mr Hunt said: ‘We may well need more 111 doctors and nurses. But if you’re worried about a rash your child has, an online alternative – where you look at photographs and say 'my child’s rash looks like this one' – may be a quicker way of getting to the bottom of whether this is serious or not.’

Dr Thom O’Neill, a general paediatric doctor at a children’s hospital in Scotland, said the two images he shared on social media were straight from a Google image search. His tweet, highlighting the problematic nature of trying to identify the severity of a rash through an image, was similar to many tweets by other doctors over the weekend. 




Thom O'Neill ‏@fakethom
Top rash will definitely kill a child without treatment. Bottom probably won’t. Tricky huh? Hunt’s advice is lethal.




“At the hospital, a whole team of professionals will assess and investigate, and even with the support of blood tests and scans and a whole hospital of medical expertise and experience, we sometimes get it wrong,” said Dr O’Neill, who also blogs regularly on Youtube. 
“Mr Hunt’s suggestion that a simple Internet search replaces that is ludicrous. Even more concerning is that he seems to suggest it instead of seeking medical attention, rather than complimenting it. There is every possibility that parents can be falsely reassured if taking Mr Hunt’s advice, leading to potentially tragedy.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/doctors-share-photos-highlighting-the-danger-behind-jeremy-hunts-advice-to-parents-a6846276.html



What the fuck does Hunt think he is playing at.   If a parent took that advice and their child died, the parent would have every right to stick Hunt in the dock.   Total madness.

They say you should do the glass test. Roll the glass on the rash and see if it disappears. Obviously, it's not foolproof, but it's a start.

I think that if people are concerned about a rash, and if there are other symptoms, they just have to nag and nag until someone takes it seriously. Unfortunately, nature has decreed that rashes don't come with a big sign to say what's causing them.

Ignorance beyond belief by these two idiotic doctors.

If where is generally the case you are waiting to get through to 111 and thus then research online to see for yourself if it could be possibly urgent, to then change your mind to call 999, how is that then wrong? They are still already waiting to get through to the 111 service
Any idiot can see the context is on the word

"Quicker"

Parents tend to think the worse with a rash

So what is quicker, wait half an hour for a call to be answered or see a picture, which makes you think to go to A&E straight away

Exactly Rags, and to tell parents to look it up on the net is beyond stupid when the child's life might be at stake.  Any parent worth their salt can see how bloody stupid Hunt is being.

Also there is vast difference between to two pictures as well

sassy wrote:Exactly Rags, and to tell parents to look it up on the net is beyond stupid when the child's life might be at stake.  Any parent worth their salt can see how bloody stupid Hunt is being.

Yes. I have nothing against researching medical stuff online - I do it myself. However, it shouldn't be used as a reliable source to diagnose something in a hurry. It can give you suggestions as to possible diagnoses, and it can be useful after a diagnosis, but that's all.

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:Exactly Rags, and to tell parents to look it up on the net is beyond stupid when the child's life might be at stake.  Any parent worth their salt can see how bloody stupid Hunt is being.

Yes. I have nothing against researching medical stuff online - I do it myself. However, it shouldn't be used as a reliable source to diagnose something in a hurry. It can give you suggestions as to possible diagnoses, and it can be useful after a diagnosis, but that's all.

Agreed, but, if a parent did this, didn't take the child and the child died, they'd never forgive themselves, or (H)unt.

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:Exactly Rags, and to tell parents to look it up on the net is beyond stupid when the child's life might be at stake.  Any parent worth their salt can see how bloody stupid Hunt is being.

Yes. I have nothing against researching medical stuff online - I do it myself. However, it shouldn't be used as a reliable source to diagnose something in a hurry. It can give you suggestions as to possible diagnoses, and it can be useful after a diagnosis, but that's all.

And it can also make the parent believe they cannot rule out the seriousness of the situation

Again what is being claims here is deceitful, as what he went off was what was "quicker"
At times the 111 is very busy, so it makes sense that you would look online and again if unsure, do you think many parents are going to make a judgement to something they will not be able to confirm? The reason all this information is online is to help and understand that some conditions are life threatening

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Yes. I have nothing against researching medical stuff online - I do it myself. However, it shouldn't be used as a reliable source to diagnose something in a hurry. It can give you suggestions as to possible diagnoses, and it can be useful after a diagnosis, but that's all.

Agreed, but, if a parent did this, didn't take the child and the child died, they'd never forgive themselves, or (H)unt.

To be fair, the article is a little misleading. JH didn't really say that parents can judge the severity of a rash, he said that they could perhaps ascertain what the rash looks like.

Clearly, the second rash in the article looks worse at first glance, but if a parent did see a pic of the first one, they may well take fast action.

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:

Agreed, but, if a parent did this, didn't take the child and the child died, they'd never forgive themselves, or (H)unt.

To be fair, the article is a little misleading. JH didn't really say that parents can judge the severity of a rash, he said that they could perhaps ascertain what the rash looks like.

Clearly, the second rash in the article looks worse at first glance, but if a parent did see a pic of the first one, they may well take fast action.

I don't think it's in the least misleading.  If a child has a red rash and a high temperature, you dial 999 for an ambulance, not get on the computer.  Literally minutes can save their lives.

Yep the articles is very misleading

The words

"maybe a quicker way


Proves how idiotic both doctors are being

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

To be fair, the article is a little misleading. JH didn't really say that parents can judge the severity of a rash, he said that they could perhaps ascertain what the rash looks like.

Clearly, the second rash in the article looks worse at first glance, but if a parent did see a pic of the first one, they may well take fast action.

I don't think it's in the least misleading.  If a child has a red rash and a high temperature, you dial 999 for an ambulance, not get on the computer.  Literally minutes can save their lives.

It is misleading because the doctors are equating the word "severity" with what a rash looks like rather than the outcome.

JH is saying that if you see a rash which looks like the top one, you can perhaps make a judgement about the severity of it in terms of outcome, not in terms of how bad it actually looks.

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:


I don't think it's in the least misleading.  If a child has a red rash and a high temperature, you dial 999 for an ambulance, not get on the computer.  Literally minutes can save their lives.

It is misleading because the doctors are equating the word "severity" with what a rash looks like rather than the outcome.

JH is saying that if you see a rash which looks like the top one, you can perhaps make a judgement about the severity of it in terms of outcome, not in terms of how bad it actually looks.

No, they are equating the word 'severity' with the disease associated with the rash.

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

It is misleading because the doctors are equating the word "severity" with what a rash looks like rather than the outcome.

JH is saying that if you see a rash which looks like the top one, you can perhaps make a judgement about the severity of it in terms of outcome, not in terms of how bad it actually looks.

No, they are equating the word 'severity' with the disease associated with the rash.

I disagree. They're saying that the second rash looks more severe than the first one - simply because it looks worse. Therefore, they're saying that a parent is less likely to seek help because the first rash looks less severe.

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:

No, they are equating the word 'severity' with the disease associated with the rash.

I disagree. They're saying that the second rash looks more severe than the first one - simply because it looks worse. Therefore, they're saying that a parent is less likely to seek help because the first rash looks less severe.

Yes, the first rash doesn't look as bad, but the disease is a killer and that's why they might be mislead.  Also the meningitus rash can look worse that the first one and more like the second and you can't tell from photos, so you shouldn't be wasting time looking.  Get the child to hospital and let them decide and keep pushing them to look again.

In fact, it would be a good idea for people to familiarise themselves with what a meningitis rash looks like generally. I remember a push for people to do just that - on breakfast TV I think, which I no longer watch.

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I disagree. They're saying that the second rash looks more severe than the first one - simply because it looks worse. Therefore, they're saying that a parent is less likely to seek help because the first rash looks less severe.

Yes, the first rash doesn't look as bad, but the disease is a killer and that's why they might be mislead.

Not if they did look it up and see that first rash, and then see that it's associated with meningitis.

That's the point really. They're implying that JH was saying that a rash which looks awful was more dangerous, but he didn't actually say that.

In any case, I think that if in doubt, get medical help.

Raggamuffin wrote:In fact, it would be a good idea for people to familiarise themselves with what a meningitis rash looks like generally. I remember a push for people to do just that - on breakfast TV I think, which I no longer watch.

Yep, but it doesn't really matter, best advice, fever, rash, get them to hospital.  And sometimes they don't have the rash, just a stiff neck.

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:In fact, it would be a good idea for people to familiarise themselves with what a meningitis rash looks like generally. I remember a push for people to do just that - on breakfast TV I think, which I no longer watch.

Yep, but it doesn't really matter, best advice, fever, rash, get them to hospital.  And sometimes they don't have the rash, just a stiff neck.

If they don't have a rash, his advice is irrelevant anyway though.

Has he talked about other symptoms, or just rashes?

There's lots of advice out there about other urgent health issues - signs of heart attacks, strokes, etc. People could be misled about those too.

I think it should be taken into account that a lot of people don't ring 999 at the drop of a hat, and others do. It's been drummed into people that calling 999 is a very serious thing, which is presumably why we now have the 111 thing.

Anyway, having said all that, it's not very helpful advice to tell people to look online for rashes if it's an emergency. If you google rashes, you'll find pics of all kinds of rashes, and some of them are stock photos of the same rash used to describe completely different conditions. I would advise anyone to familiarise themselves with the meningitis rash anyway though.

I don't think there's a problem doing research up front in case of future rashes, or doing research after a diagnosis, or if a medical issue is clearly not immediately life-threatening generally.

Raggamuffin wrote:Anyway, having said all that, it's not very helpful advice to tell people to look online for rashes if it's an emergency. If you google rashes, you'll find pics of all kinds of rashes, and some of them are stock photos of the same rash used to describe completely different conditions. I would advise anyone to familiarise themselves with the meningitis rash anyway though.

I don't think there's a problem doing research up front in case of future rashes, or doing research after a diagnosis, or if a medical issue is clearly not immediately life-threatening generally.  

But that is in hindsight, because they will not know it is an emergency, yet looking online, may turn this to then taking as an emergency.
Can you not see that.
Again place this in context of the situation, where you are trying to get through to 111.
You see how in fact it may very well be serious. and hang up and cal 999.
So to say its not very helpful, is indeed false, as it will advise also online what other symptoms there may well be
Remember the start point is a parent identifying a rash, the state of seriousness is at that point unknown

Didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Anyway, having said all that, it's not very helpful advice to tell people to look online for rashes if it's an emergency. If you google rashes, you'll find pics of all kinds of rashes, and some of them are stock photos of the same rash used to describe completely different conditions. I would advise anyone to familiarise themselves with the meningitis rash anyway though.

I don't think there's a problem doing research up front in case of future rashes, or doing research after a diagnosis, or if a medical issue is clearly not immediately life-threatening generally.  

But that is in hindsight, because they will not know it is an emergency, yet looking online, may turn this to then taking as an emergency.
Can you not see that.
Again place this in context of the situation, where you are trying to get through to 111.
You see how in fact it may very well be serious. and hang up and cal 999.
So to say its not very helpful, is indeed false, as it will advise also online what other symptoms there may well be
Remember the start point is a parent identifying a rash, the state of seriousness is at that point unknown

When I say "emergency" I mean if a child has a rash right now, and the parents are worried about it. It takes time to look at rashes on the internet and determine which ones are actually associated with a particular condition. If someone already suspects it's a meningitis rash, that would take less time because they can google that, but that's not what JH was specifically talking about is it? What are the parents suppose to google? "Child rash"? Try it and see what you come up with.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Didge wrote:

But that is in hindsight, because they will not know it is an emergency, yet looking online, may turn this to then taking as an emergency.
Can you not see that.
Again place this in context of the situation, where you are trying to get through to 111.
You see how in fact it may very well be serious. and hang up and cal 999.
So to say its not very helpful, is indeed false, as it will advise also online what other symptoms there may well be
Remember the start point is a parent identifying a rash, the state of seriousness is at that point unknown

When I say "emergency" I mean if a child has a rash right now, and the parents are worried about it. It takes time to look at rashes on the internet and determine which ones are actually associated with a particular condition. If someone already suspects it's a meningitis rash, that would take less time because they can google that, but that's not what JH was specifically talking about is it? What are the parents suppose to google? "Child rash"? Try it and see what you come up with.

But you are failing to take into account the context of what he said.
Where it maybe be quicker to look online and not then be able to rule out how serious it is.
That could be far quicker than getting through to speak to a GP
Do not forget through the 111 system it is very good at where something cannot be ruled out it will flag as very urgent, but you are reliant on the answers of the parents to questions which can vary and mean something gets missed. In other words human error

This will then lead to a call back from the GP and after you have just waited for the call handler
By the time you have spoken to the GP, 2 hours may have passed

Didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

When I say "emergency" I mean if a child has a rash right now, and the parents are worried about it. It takes time to look at rashes on the internet and determine which ones are actually associated with a particular condition. If someone already suspects it's a meningitis rash, that would take less time because they can google that, but that's not what JH was specifically talking about is it? What are the parents suppose to google? "Child rash"? Try it and see what you come up with.

But you are failing to take into account the context of what he said.
Where it maybe be quicker to look online and not then be able to rule out how serious it is.
That could be far quicker than getting through to speak to a GP
Do not forget through the 111 system it is very good at where something cannot be ruled out it will flag as very urgent, but you are reliant on the answers of the parents to questions which can vary and mean something gets missed

This will then lead to a call back from the GP and after you have just waited for the call handler
By the time you have spoken to the GP, 2 hours may have passed

Well it would be quicker if someone suspected it was a nappy rash because then you would conclude that it wasn't an emergency. I mean, you wouldn't call an ambulance for that would you? If everyone called an ambulance in the case of nappy rash, the whole system would crash!

However, if you didn't know what a rash was, it wouldn't be quicker because you'd have to trawl through all the possible conditions and all the photos which are out there.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Didge wrote:

But you are failing to take into account the context of what he said.
Where it maybe be quicker to look online and not then be able to rule out how serious it is.
That could be far quicker than getting through to speak to a GP
Do not forget through the 111 system it is very good at where something cannot be ruled out it will flag as very urgent, but you are reliant on the answers of the parents to questions which can vary and mean something gets missed

This will then lead to a call back from the GP and after you have just waited for the call handler
By the time you have spoken to the GP, 2 hours may have passed

Well it would be quicker if someone suspected it was a nappy rash because then you would conclude that it wasn't an emergency. I mean, you wouldn't call an ambulance for that would you? If everyone called an ambulance in the case of nappy rash, the whole system would crash!

However, if you didn't know what a rash was, it wouldn't be quicker because you'd have to trawl through all the possible conditions and all the photos which are out there.

You just contradicted yourself

If they look online and suspect it is serious now after viewing symtoms and go to the hospital, it would be quicker.
So even if they did not know what the rash was it could still be quicker.
Again this is placing this in the context clearly off 111

Didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Well it would be quicker if someone suspected it was a nappy rash because then you would conclude that it wasn't an emergency. I mean, you wouldn't call an ambulance for that would you? If everyone called an ambulance in the case of nappy rash, the whole system would crash!

However, if you didn't know what a rash was, it wouldn't be quicker because you'd have to trawl through all the possible conditions and all the photos which are out there.

You just contradicted yourself

If they look online and suspect it is serious now after viewing symtoms and go to the hospital, it would be quicker.
So even if they did not know what the rash was it could still be quicker.
Again this is placing this in the context clearly off 111

I haven't contradicted myself at all. I think you're putting too much emphasis on the word "quicker". He didn't say that they could look on the internet whilst they're waiting to speak to someone after calling 111, he said they could do it as an alternative, and that that would be a quicker way to determine if it was a serious rash or not.

I actually don't know what your argument here is, so I think we'll have to leave it. I'll wait for someone else to comment.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Didge wrote:

You just contradicted yourself

If they look online and suspect it is serious now after viewing symtoms and go to the hospital, it would be quicker.
So even if they did not know what the rash was it could still be quicker.
Again this is placing this in the context clearly off 111

I haven't contradicted myself at all. I think you're putting too much emphasis on the word "quicker". He didn't say that they could look on the internet whilst they're waiting to speak to someone after calling 111, he said they could do it as an alternative, and that that would be a quicker way to determine if it was a serious rash or not.

I actually don't know what your argument here is, so I think we'll have to leave it. I'll wait for someone else to comment.

You said they could find, and then not find, not knowing when they could

What reason would there be to doing this as an alternative?

Unable to get through to 111by any chance Rags?

I'm not addressing Didge with this post, it's just a general one.

The whole issue arose because of the death of a child, the popularity of 111, and the confusion of the public about where to get medical help, especially after hours.

I think 111 is useful if you need to see or speak to a doctor but your own surgery is closed, and you don't think the situation warrants an ambulance. I've called them in those circumstances and they were brilliant. However, I knew what was wrong and I knew it wasn't life-threatening.

Raggamuffin wrote:I'm not addressing Didge with this post, it's just a general one.

The whole issue arose because of the death of a child, the popularity of 111, and the confusion of the public about where to get medical help, especially after hours.

I think 111 is useful if you need to see or speak to a doctor but your own surgery is closed, and you don't think the situation warrants an ambulance. I've called them in those circumstances and they were brilliant. However, I knew what was wrong and I knew it wasn't life-threatening.

Do you even know at what cost it is for each patient when 999 attends?

To then the cost if you have to attend hospital?

This is something that many people are not aware of and the massive costs assigned to each surgery per patient.

Didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I'm not addressing Didge with this post, it's just a general one.

The whole issue arose because of the death of a child, the popularity of 111, and the confusion of the public about where to get medical help, especially after hours.

I think 111 is useful if you need to see or speak to a doctor but your own surgery is closed, and you don't think the situation warrants an ambulance. I've called them in those circumstances and they were brilliant. However, I knew what was wrong and I knew it wasn't life-threatening.

Do you even know at what cost it is for each patient when 999 attends?

To then the cost if you have to attend hospital?

This is something that many people are not aware of and the massive costs assigned to each surgery per patient.

Yes, which is why I didn't ring 999. I think 999 is a service which should be used carefully, and I knew I didn't need an ambulance. I did, however, need urgent medical assistance, so 111 was the next best thing. I might have been able to find an out-of-hours doctor myself but I was not in a fit state to do so. I was also not able to drive to A&E.

I have friends who have also used 111 for the same reasons.

Anyway, I think the problem here is JH's suggestion that people could look on the internet as an alternative to calling 111. Of course they could call 111, or even an ambulance, and whilst they're waiting for help they could look online to see if they can find anything - if there are two of them obviously.

Raggamuffin wrote:Anyway, I think the problem here is JH's suggestion that people could look on the internet as an alternative to calling 111. Of course they could call 111, or even an ambulance, and whilst they're waiting for help they could look online to see if they can find anything - if there are two of them obviously.

Which was the point all along rags, hence why I find the article very misleading

Didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Anyway, I think the problem here is JH's suggestion that people could look on the internet as an alternative to calling 111. Of course they could call 111, or even an ambulance, and whilst they're waiting for help they could look online to see if they can find anything - if there are two of them obviously.

Which was the point all along rags, hence why I find the article very misleading

Oh. I thought you were concentrating on the word "quicker" rather than anything else.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Didge wrote:

Which was the point all along rags, hence why I find the article very misleading

Oh. I thought you were concentrating on the word "quicker" rather than anything else.

Well being as it could be quicker, its a very valid point