A representative of the NHS 111 service provider will summarise the key features of the NHS 111 service in Outer North East London.
Minutes:
It was explained that the service provider for NHS 111 as well as of the out of hours GP service for ONEL and Essex was PELC – the Partnership of East London Cooperatives. PELC also operated GP walk-in centres at King George and Whipps Cross Hospitals.
The NHS 111 service allowed easier access to urgent care and access to on-site advisers for complex care issues. Ambulances could be dispatched if the telephone assessment deemed this to be necessary and the NHS 111 software had an automated link to the NHS 111 service. NHS 111 would otherwise give a time frame and clinical outcomes to e.g. see a patient’s GP within three working days.
NHS 111 used the NHS Pathways system that had been developed by GPs and other clinicians. Around 30% of calls received were transferred to clinical advisers such as nurses or paramedics if they were thought to be sufficiently complex. Nationally, there were around 500,000 calls to NHS 111 each month.
The service used a directory of services that listed all NHS services within England. NHS 111 could was also able to send patient details electronically. Training for health advisers on the services lasted for five weeks including a two weeks initial course that was required to be passed. Ongoing training and support was also available. Updates were added to the system for new issues such as the Ebola outbreak.
As regards clinical governance, NHS 111 met on a monthly basis with commissioners and also with patient representatives. Feedback was received via surveys and end to audits with patients. All complaints and incidents were also logged. There had been approximately 21,000 calls to NHS 111 from the ONEL area in December 2014. Around 62% of calls were referred to primary care thought it was accepted that access for patients to GPs remained a problem.
The directory of services used by NHS 111 allowed the identification for commissioners of gaps in services and it was felt that NHS 111 had made the NHS as a whole more cost effective. NHS 111 had its dashboard that it used for performance indicators.
If calls were referred incorrectly, this was fed back to NHS 111 by the services concerned on occasions but did not always happen. The profile of a service could also be changed on the directory of services if necessary. NHS 111 was keen to receive more feedback on calls that had been misdirected. Feedback could be given via the PELC website and PELC officers would supply the links to this. There were also mechanisms via the PELC website for health professionals to give feedback. PELC also worked with the local Healthwatch organisations for example in planning resilience. NHS 111 also conducted their own patient surveys.
The response time target for the service was to answer 95% of calls within 60 seconds. This indicator had hit 97% over the Christmas period. Targets to limit the number of abandoned calls were also being met. It was noted that around 40% of calls to the ONEL NHS 111 service originated from other geographical areas.
There had not as yet been much national publicity for NHS 111 due to provider problems in other regions. It was clarified that NHS 111 staff had the same ability to assess calls as did operators on the 999 emergency service. The recent establishment of GP Federation Hubs in two of the ONEL boroughs would be reflected in the NHS 111 directory of services. The local ‘Not Just A&E’ campaign also promoted NHS 111.
Officers indicated they were happy for the Committee to visit the NHS 111 offices in order to learn more about the service and the work it undertook.
The Committee NOTED the update.