Thousands told to stay home by 111 service need A&E care

THOUSANDS of patients told to selfcare at home by NHS 111 were admitted to hospital after turning up on their own accord, a study reveals.

It analysed more than 3.6 million calls to NHS 111 in the north-east of England and linked these to emergency department attendances over four years.

Its findings suggested that about 2.5million patients nationally are turning up at A&E “unadvised” every year following a call to NHS 111.

More than one in 10 of the patients who were advised to self-care at home or see their GP instead attended A&E within 48 hours. Of those, almost 90 per cent were classed as urgent and nearly two fifths admitted to hospital.

The University of Sheffield researchers said it suggests “many hundreds of thousands” of patients are mis-triaged by NHS 111, which uses non-clinical “health advisers”, every year.

It comes as the NHS is braced for one of the toughest winters on record. The latest data show seven million patients are waiting to start treatment, more than 32,000 patients waited 12 hours in A&E in September, and more than 1.5million are waiting for a test or scan.

Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the 111 service will “create further unnecessary problems” for the health service this winter.

He said: “We are really concerned about what this winter is going to look like. The University of Sheffield study rings true with everything that we’ve always said about NHS 111. It is a triage tool. Triage should be seen as a valuable, skilled, clinical activity.

“I think one of the big problems with NHS 111, the way it’s set up at the moment, is it doesn’t have enough access to clinical advice.”

An NHS Digital spokesperson said: “The system is subject to rolling reviews by clinicians to ensure it aligns with (and its regular updates reflect) the latest clinical evidence, data, feedback and outcomes.”