Pressure grows on NHS as 111 helpline sends more to A&E
RISING numbers of patients who call the 111 non-emergency helpline are being sent an ambulance or told to go to A&E, a report warned yesterday.
Around 200,000 callers a month are now told to go to casualty or wait for paramedics – up from 150,000 a month only three years ago.
This is as many as 22 per cent of the total callers, a rise from 18 per cent in 2013 when the service launched.
The Nuffield Trust think-tank said the concerning findings were probably a result of unqualified call centre workers being too ‘risk averse’.
They have no medical knowledge and so are more likely to dispatch ambulances just in case, even for period pains, insect bites or burnt lips.
The study also shows huge variation in ambulance dispatches across England – from the North-East, where 17 per cent of 111 callers were sent an ambulance last year, to only 8 per cent in south-east Essex.
The findings will stoke fears that the helpline is contributing to the crisis in A&E, where waiting times have surged.
The 111 helpline has been beset with controversy ever since its launch in April 2016, to replace NHS Direct.
It is manned by call centre workers with no medical training who read through a computer script to decide what to do.
But flaws in this system were blamed for the tragic death of one-year-old William Mead from sepsis in 2014, when a call handler failed to realise he was seriously ill and confused his symptoms with a cough.
At the same time call centre handlers have been sending patients to A&E or dispatching ambulances when all they
‘Consistently missing targets’
needed was advice.
The report also found that the helpline has missed its target for answering 95 per cent of calls in 60 seconds for the last two and a half years.
An investigation by the Daily Mail last year revealed the 111 service was mired in chaos. Teenagers were left to answer life- or- death calls, exhausted staff were falling asleep at their posts and deaths linked to the service were covered up.
MPs said the helpline’s failings were adding to the pressures in A&E.
Former health minister and Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb said: ‘These numbers are yet another sign of the unbearable pressure our health system is under. Whichever part of the system you look at it’s now at breaking point. The Government urgently needs to fix the 111 system and ensure staff are properly trained.’
But the report pointed out that despite its failings, the hel- pline did appear to be successfully steering patients away from A&E or calling 999.
It highlighted evidence showing that without 111 many more patients would turn up in A&E or call an ambulance.
A spokesman for NHS England said: ‘ The increased number of people referred to emergency care is proportionate to the higher number of calls being handled.’
He added: ‘111 continues to do an important job helping patients to get the right care, at the right place and at the right time, and in protecting both A&E and ambulance services from unnecessary attendances and callouts.’