NHS 111 implodes as GPC withdraws support for urgent care hotline !

The GPC has warned that the launch of the Government’s flagship urgent care hotline will go ‘very badly’ from 1 April, with launches of the service in London, Manchester and Birmingham already descending into chaos.

GP leaders across the country are warning that patient care is being hampered by the service due to improperly trained staff, a lack of personnel, long waits and out-of-hours GPs having to take on extra work.

The GPC will write to the NHS Commissioning Board and the Department of Health to request that the national launch of the service to replace NHS Direct from 1 April is delayed.

GPC chair Dr Laurence Buckman said he was concerned that unless the launch was delayed, it would go ‘very badly’.

He said: ‘We are very concerned that when the service goes live on 1 April, it will not be able to cope with what will happen. It clearly can’t cope in Manchester and Birmingham, how is it going to cope when London goes live?’

‘On 1 April everyone will be forced to use it and we think it will go very badly.’

In Manchester, BMA representative and LMC chair Dr John Hughes said a ‘soft launch’ of the NHS 111 system in his area failed last night, with waits of up to 90 minutes.

He said: ‘The service soft launched yesterday. Things were reasonably quiet until early evening. I spoke to one doctor who was working his shift at the out of hours service. At 9.30pm, they realised they were getting very few calls through.

‘They then got a call from a carer who had been on hold with NHS 111 for 90 minutes who was with a 90-year-old patient. She had to cancel appointments with her other patients because she did not want to leave. Shortly after that, it became clear that the ambulance service was becoming overwhelmed by calls.

‘The out-of-hours service across Manchester rightly took the view that the situation across Manchester was very dangerous and they took back control of the call handling. But they are not resourced to do that as many of their staff were [transferred] to NHS Direct. 

‘I don’t think the services will cope from 1 April. We didn’t think it would cope with the soft launch.’

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Eddie