Dial 111 for...?

This week I've been trying to get to the bottom of the NHS 111 phone line. I was alerted to its presence by a press release awarding the tender for the phone line to private company ‘Harmoni’. According to the August release on the Kingston NHS website, the phone line is being rolled out Kingston and Richmond as a form of patient triaging; like a non-emergency 999 number.

I’m confused about what role this phone line performs when NHS Direct and Out of Hours care phone numbers are already available. It seems particularly strange to be spending money on this at a time of drastic cuts, which leads me to wonder whether this is a form of cost or corner cutting elsewhere…

According to the press release, the phone line is already available in Croydon, with Richmond and Kingston the next stop before a UK wide roll out by the end of 2013. A quick google search reveals a different picture, with many London boroughs involved.

I rang a senior member of NHS 111 for London to work out what this number does and why it is needed. He did not want to be quoted but told me that the line was not a replacement for NHS Direct and is instead a way of directing patients more efficiently to out of hours care.

A new report, however, released last week suggests that the service could be putting more pressure than before on Out of Hours services. So who’s right?

According to is this NHS report released in August the line is very successful in terms of the speed calls have been answered and the amount of calls handled, but what would be happening to these patients without the line, and how are clinicians managing these calls on top of their normal work? I’m going to look into this further, starting with these questions;

·         What new role the service is performing

·         Whether it is designed to cut costs somewhere else

·         How it relates to the NHS Direct phone number

·         How much Harmoni are charging for the Kingston contract