Elaine Donohoe, specialist at the National Poisons Information Centre, Beaumont Hospital, says the centre gets about 40 calls a day
I have a science background - I did microbiology and then a master's degree in food science, but I always had more of an interest in the medical side of things.
I'm one of six specialists in poisons information here and we also have a medical director.
We provide information for people who are treating anybody who has been poisoned with agents across the board - drugs, chemicals, household products.
We get calls from staff nurses or doctors, GPs, mothers at home, there's a huge range really.
We get about 40 calls a day and we work in different shifts. We finish here at 10pm and it transfers over to a line in Cardiff. It's a 24-hour line seven days a week.
If I'm answering the phone I would generally take as full a history as I can from the person, assess what kind of severity it is, what the risk would be to the patient and then discuss the treatment options if it is a medical person, what kind of symptoms they would be expected to develop and how to treat them.
If it's a member of the public I would refer them on to a medical assessment if that is needed. We're not doctors so we would always have to refer it on.
A lot of it though is reassurance, to say it's fine, don't worry about it, it will be alright.
Some people are frantic and then others are so relaxed and you have to encourage them to go to A&E because there might be a problem, so you see both sides.
If there's anything that's ongoing or any potentially serious cases, we would always follow them up.
We would ring back the hospital and keep going until the patient is discharged. Just to make sure the treatment protocols are up to date and to discuss any further aspects of treatment.
In the morning, if I'm the first person on, the first thing I do is peer review the calls from the night before.
It's obviously very important when you are dealing with calculations and chemicals and drugs that the information that you have been giving out is accurate, so we all peer review each other's calls.
When I am not answering the phone I do a lot of literature research as well just to make sure all the current treatment protocols we have are up to date.
We get a lot of material safety data sheets in from industrial companies as well.
It makes it easier if a child has taken a slug out of a bottle of bleach at home if we have the relevant information when they call up and then we are able to advise them whether or not there's a problem.
The types of call we get sometimes depend on the season.
During the summer you tend to find there are more children involved because they are not at school, they are at home, whereas during the winter it's more adults who have taken a deliberate overdose.
For the most part, in the more serious cases - the deliberate poisonings or overdoses - you would tend to talk to the doctor.
But the calls change all the time. It's a really interesting job.