Patients giving up on the 111 NHS help line

Deepening crisis across the NHS at point in year when winter pressures usually ease off

Patients are abandoning the 111 line in droves amid a spiralling NHS crisis that has seen the worst Accident & Emergency performance on record, official figures show. The proportion of patients giving up on the 111 line has risen five-fold in 12 months, with 55,000 abandoned calls in March.

PATIENTS are abandoning the 111 line in droves amid a spiralling NHS spring crisis which has seen the worst Accident & Emergency performance on record, official figures show.

The proportion of patients giving up on the 111 line – which was supposed to ease pressures on hospitals – has risen five-fold in 12 months, with a record 55,000 abandoned calls in March.

The figures reveal a deepening crisis across the health service at a point in the year when winter pressures traditionally ease.

Delays in A&E during March were the worst ever recorded – higher than in any point in the last five winters.

Health officials said the month was particularly busy, with more than two million patients turning to A&E – an alltime record, after the busiest year for such departments.

They said a late flu season and the knock-on effect of repeated strikes by junior doctors had compounded the pressures.

Over the previous 12 months, demand for 111 has risen by one third, as awareness of the service has grown. But the service has failed to keep up, with 8.4 per cent of callers giving up on their calls in March, compared with a figure of 1.7 per cent the previous year.

The service also missed targets to respond to callers quickly or to call them back within 10 minutes – with just one in three of those promised a call-back receiving it within such time.

Senior doctors said urgent action to send more staff into A&E was needed to tackle a worsening crisis. Dr Cliff Mann, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “Unless there is immediate action to address the epidemic of rota gaps, patient care will be compromised and the current situation will deteriorate further.

“Whilst the NHS 111 service is well intended it is clearly not relieving pressure on A&E.”

While some patients turned to A&E after giving up on 111, others ended up in casualty after the service told them to try their GP, experts said.

Overall, March marked the worst performance for A&E on record, with just 87.3 per cent of patients admitted, transferred or discharged from England’s A&E departments within four hours of arrival, against a 95 per cent target. Ambulance response times plummeted, with 66.5 per cent of the most urgent calls receiving a response in eight minutes, and a 58 per cent response among other life-threatening calls, against a target of 75 per cent.

‘Unless there is immediate action to address the epidemic of rota gaps, the situation will deteriorate’

A key waiting target, for people to start treatment within 18 weeks of referral by a GP, achieved its worst performance on record, while “bed-blocking” levels were also the highest.

Health officials said a backlog of cancelled operations and appointments, caused by a string of strikes by junior doctors had contributed to the deteriorating performance.

An NHS England spokesman said: “The [111] service continues to do a vital job in terms of 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 call-outs.

“Of the calls NHS 111 triaged, just 11.2 per cent led to an ambulance being dispatched and just 7.8 per cent were recommended to A&E.”