Swine flu call centre

[tris-]

Will be setup initially with 1600 staff, going up to 2000, to handle 1 million calls a week.
Pretty impressive I reckon. How did they setup an operation like that so quickly, find so many people, train them all up? Get property, telecoms etc in place?

Anyone know about this stuff who can shed some light on it?

 

[CorNokZ]

Why bother? It's just a new flu..

"zomg sars!"... "zomg madcow disease!"... "zomg bird flu!"... "zomg pig flu!"... etc

 

[Madmaxx]

I used to work for a call centre once and they just did little campaigns every week. Like one week we are calling about product re-calls as food is contaminated or selling some kinda insurance, you literally read a script on the screen in front of you. So I guess they may use these type of call centre's. Maybe have like a list of 10 symptons and other questions about where they have been recently. Then if they pass that quizz they get to move on to there GP for a anti-viral code or something.

 

[tris-]

Why bother? It's just a new flu..

"zomg sars!"... "zomg madcow disease!"... "zomg bird flu!"... "zomg pig flu!"... etc

Because it is putting a strain on other resources that everyone else needs to use. Its not because of what it is, but because of how it is fucking up other things like NHS direct and GP surgeries.

Won't it be open to abuse?

Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, has himself admitted people will be able to cheat the system.

It will not be long before the "correct" answers that will get people anti-viral drugs will appear on the internet somewhere.

However, the government accepts this is the price it is willing to pay for relieving the pressure on the health service.

Sir Liam says he believes it will only be a "minority" of people who do abuse it.

There are also safeguards in place. Everyone in the country has a unique flu number so if they try to get anti-virals more than once the NHS will know.

What a naive idiot. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8158864.stm

 

[megadave]

This swine flu thing is a load of shit anyway.

 

[Garaen]

Wait till winter when scores of people start dying from it, from all ages then it won't be a load of shit tbh.

 

[Bahumat]

Will be setup initially with 1600 staff, going up to 2000, to handle 1 million calls a week.
Pretty impressive I reckon. How did they setup an operation like that so quickly, find so many people, train them all up? Get property, telecoms etc in place?

Anyone know about this stuff who can shed some light on it?

They planned to setup the helpdesk for august so they're just launching earlier from what I heard.

 

[Huntingtons]

train them all up?

that part was easy. just put 2000 voicemails on repeat saying: "you dont have swine-flu"

 

[old.Tohtori]

Why bother? It's just a new flu..

"zomg sars!"... "zomg madcow disease!"... "zomg bird flu!"... "zomg pig flu!"... etc

Because one of them WILL be the zombie flu!

 

[Ch3tan]

Wait till winter when scores of people start dying from it, from all ages then it won't be a load of shit tbh.

What he said, it's been really bad in this country as it is. As tris- said, it is putting massive strain on the NHS. I suppose it's spread in this country proves we are all filthy fuckers who don't wash their hands or use tissues.

 

[old.Tohtori]

What he said, it's been really bad in this country as it is. As tris- said, it is putting massive strain on the NHS. I suppose it's spread in this country proves we are all filthy fuckers who don't wash their hands or use tissues.

Well to be honest, if you has it, you will spread it to things even if you do scrub stuff and blow your nose on antiseptic wipes.

Just a lil scratch at the nose and the lil buggers jump at the chance to spread.

Ofcourse i'm not denying you're all a lot of filthy f*ckers but...

 

[Ezteq]

does anyone actually know anyone who has had it? it seems to be something you only hear abou on the telly (like people winning the lotto) i reckon the first freddy to gte it should get a medal

 

[Ch3tan]

does anyone actually know anyone who has had it? it seems to be something you only hear abou on the telly (like people winning the lotto) i reckon the first freddy to gte it should get a medal

Yes loads of people in London. My brother in law had an outbreak in the bank where he works. Luckily for him he was on holiday that week. They closed the branch for a day as the manager and 2 members of staff where taken to hospital. A distant relative of mine had to stay in hospital as well.

It is rife in this country, and if you ask around I am sure you will know someone who was had it.

 

[kiliarien]

Yes loads of people in London. My brother in law had an outbreak in the bank where he works. Luckily for him he was on holiday that week. They closed the branch for a day as the manager and 2 members of staff where taken to hospital. A distant relative of mine had to stay in hospital as well.

It is rife in this country, and if you ask around I am sure you will know someone who was had it.

2 of the teachers at the school I work at had it - they said it was shitty but got over it, like normal flu. I also know someone who works for a regional health authority - at his place the boss went on holiday for 2 weeks, and half the staff had leave booked for the next 2 months. The 'acting' boss cancelled everyone's leave. The real boss (if he/she had any morals) should cut their holiday short too tbh.

And who said anything about training for these call centre people?? I might just call up to speak to Mr Patel in Mumbai.......

 

[tris-]

I assumed they would all need some level of training, I know it is not medical. But you cant put 2000 random public joes infront of a computer system and expect them to know what to do off the cuff.

 

[Chronictank]

does anyone actually know anyone who has had it? it seems to be something you only hear abou on the telly (like people winning the lotto) i reckon the first freddy to gte it should get a medal

The shop next door to my friends offices got closed down for a couple of weeks because a couple of people there had it

 

[Zita]

does anyone actually know anyone who has had it? it seems to be something you only hear abou on the telly (like people winning the lotto) i reckon the first freddy to gte it should get a medal

My two cousins have it, people from my school have it, and children at my Mum's school where she works has it :d

 

[leviathane]

I suppose it's spread in this country proves we are all filthy fuckers who don't wash their hands or use tissues.

You see this is something i've not really got to grips with. It's a virus. How can anti-bacterial soaps and wipes and stuff like that get rid of a virus

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

I assumed they would all need some level of training

Can't be worse than my fucking bank tbh. (barely intelligible accent) "Yis sir, I will be dofinitely helping you wid your query please - err sir i will be helping you with your query". Call me fucking picky, but a basic requirement to work in a call centre answering calls from an English-speaking country, should be speaking English!!
Mind you, half the jobsworths i speak to in UK call centres aren't much better!

 

[old.Tohtori]

You see this is something i've not really got to grips with. It's a virus. How can anti-bacterial soaps and wipes and stuff like that get rid of a virus

Exactly what i meant before.

You can ofcourse clean the virus from your hands if it's only on your hands, but if you've been infected, you might accidentally let out a sprinkle of a sneeze on a railing or something and there ya go, infectious bastard! :lol:

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

You see this is something i've not really got to grips with. It's a virus. How can anti-bacterial soaps and wipes and stuff like that get rid of a virus

Exactly what i've been saying. Same problem as doctors perscribing antibiotics for an f'ing cold. Creates superbugs that we have now.

I suspect that marketing comes strongly into it - probably a good recession buster for the pharma companies etc.

 

[Ezteq]

ah ok I lay corrected (in bed poorley atm lol) I don't think anyone down my neck of the woods has had it though.

on the topic of call centres, when I wrked in one (doing marketing for elecrtonic sub contractors like siemens etc) I knew feck all about what i was marketing, did a bit of research (which was on my own time) learned what I was on about and generated the most leads, i did so well I was actually taken on a trip to the soemens factory to see the PCBs manufacturing plant I'd been marketing lol.

Also, I read an interesting book about how the world is being shrunken by information transfers and it was saying about in India they train the callers to speak in the language of the place they are calling and adopt names from there, so the guy said he attended a "speaking american" lesson with a bunch of indians called chip, chuck and mindy lol

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

whats the number

0898 achoo (0898 22466)

 

[Ezteq]

lol i just got back from the Dr's and she whipped her mask on pretty sharp when I told her my symptoms then waved this ultra cool star trekish thermomitizer over my head and saw i didn't have a temp (wee infection ftw!!1) but there are signs up everywhere "if you have swine flu do not come to the surgery!" Umm but how will you know if you have it? I mean my symptoms are pretty similar but its only because ive had this before I knew it wasn't teh fluz0r

 

[leviathane]

problem is, the symptoms for most things are pretty similar these days.

 

[tris-]

Yeh they are pretty general. One symptom of a brain tumour is a headache, and it is also a symptom of dehydration!

 

[Tilda]

Sorry to bump this, but just thought I'd add - a high % of those "2000 call handlers" are going to be NHS Direct call center workers who are reallocated to a pure swineflu line.
Sure it helps in the shorterm with swine flu, but it doesn't do much for anybody with a problem that isn't swine flu!

 

[Ch3tan]

i did so well I was actually taken on a trip to the soemens factory to see the PCBs manufacturing plant I'd been marketing lol.

Ahh so close to a slip up there ez.

 

[leviathane]

This is what i meant by similar symptons, meningitis and the flu of swines;

Swine Flu Error 'Almost Killed Our Daughter' - Yahoo! News UK

 

[tris-]

Looks like swine flu may well be real.
Just come back from Spain with my mates. On the way out, a lady disembarked the plane with a facemask on and a paramedic.
Saturday morning my friend and I started to get that 'something is wrong' feeling, and a cough. About 8 hours later we were both completley fucked, very flu like.
Today we are even worse, and he is worse than I am. Ive completed an assesment and now I am on Tamiflu.

Now a third friend is started to get the initial feelings we had.