The 111 helpline is in need of major surgery

TODAY, the Mail Investigations Unit raises profoundly disturbing questions about the NHS 111 helpline – a service at risk of meltdown.

Hundreds of thousands of calls not answered… a single nurse available to cover an area of 2.3million people… overburdened staff, with only three weeks’ training, making life- or- death decisions with barely any clinical support… call-answering targets missed for seven months in a row… With chronic understaffing and computers giving misleading advice, lives have been lost unnecessarily, while many more are at risk. No wonder a whistleblower says the service is ‘completely unsafe’.

Such is the appalling reality of the helpline, intended to be staffed by ‘highly trained advisers’, which was set up to offer urgent assistance to patients and direct them to the best medical care.

Instead, in some areas, up to 75 per cent of calls are left unanswered at busy times. With GPs too often unavailable, it is hardly surprising that patients feel they’ve nowhere to turn but their nearest A & E department, where they pile yet more pressure on overworked staff.

Indeed, the chaos at the 111 helpline, which replaced the equally hapless NHS Direct, is just one more aspect of the crisis in out- of-hours care that sprang from Labour’s botched contracts, giving GPs massive pay rises for fewer hours.

It highlights the pressing need for a radical shake-up, which must surely include putting family doctors back on call, round the clock. Sticking-plaster solutions just don’t work.