Helpline blunders

How NHS 111 advisers are burdening hospitals and emergency services

NHS 111 relies increasingly on hospital A&E departments and ambulance call-outs to consult patients, despite the service being specifically for non-life threatening cases.

Hospitals across the country are under huge strain - particularly at weekends - by referrals from NHS 111 advisers, who in some parts of the country fail to answer 20 per cent of calls within the required 60 seconds.

The map below provides a snapshot of the average call times, ambulance dispatches and A&E referrals for NHS 111 services across England.

Weekend headaches

Official figures show that NHS 111 sends 50 per cent more patients to A&E at the weekend, when GPs and other services are shut, placing a huge strain on hospitals.

Doctors’ leaders said that nurses, who handled calls to NHS Direct, the previous incarnation of the helpline, had the experience to know when patients did not need to go to hospital.

The chart below provides a snapshot of just how much more strain A&E wards are put under at weekends due to NHS 111 call centre referrals*.

The huge spikes reflected are all at weekends. Tap on the chart to discover more.

*The chart shows all NHS 111 A&E referrals that were made between 3 November 2014 to 14 December 2014.

The numbers

The chart below shows the total number of calls answered by NHS 111 staff across the country*, as well as how many are answered within 60 seconds.

The chart also shows the total number of ambulances dispatched as well as the total number of NHS 111 phone calls that lead to A&E referrals.

Toggle between the tabs to see which areas of England are highest for the aforementioned categories.

*All figures are for November 2014 - the last full month of recorded NHS 111 data.

Research and words by Katie Gibbons and Sam Joiner.