Hangin’ on…
V 111
It’s always a bad sign when my Blog produces another bad
logo. The NHS 111 service has been a running sore and it will get worse. This
article from the Independent misses the point rather.
The service was launched before the pilot schemes to test it
out had been completed. The point was to save money – a clinician led service
(NHS Direct) was to be replaced by a call centre (111) which had a few back up
clinicians.
End result? If in doubt send them to Accident and Emergency.
Solution? More Nurses and Doctors at the Call Centres.
Result? It costs a lot more.
Cahal
Milmo
Thursday 02 January 2014
The service designed to lessen the burden on
hospital casualty units by assessing non-emergency cases was thrown into chaos
last summer when NHS Direct, one of the main providers, pulled out of its
contracts saying it could no longer afford them.
An
investigation by the British Medical Journal has now established that the cost
of re-tendering the contracts is likely to run into millions as managers attempt
to reshape the service to meet concerns that it is diverting people to hospitals
and needs to improve access to trained clinicians.
In the West
Midlands, just one of 11 regions where NHS Direct had won contracts, the cost
of securing a new operator has been put at £500,000, leaving the health service
with a potential bill of £5.5m if the charge is repeated across the country.
Doctors’
leaders and Opposition politicians said that the public was paying the price
for the premature launch of NHS 111 and problems persist with the quality of
call handling and an over-reliance on computer algorithms. NHS England said it
had acknowledged initial difficulties and insisted 111 was now “a stable and improving
service”.
Andrew
Gwynne, a Labour Health spokesman, said: “It is now clear that ministers wasted
millions on flawed contracts. We warned the Government at the outset that 111
was fundamentally flawed but they pressed ahead with the rollout regardless.
“Now,
profits are being put before patient care as private companies run the advice
line – with call-centre operators directing too many to A&E. Patients in large
parts of England still face uncertainty over their 111 line.”
NHS Direct,
which ran the original health service helpline, won nearly a quarter of the 46
contracts across England to provide the 111 service from Merseyside to Cornwall.
But it announced in July that the contracts, which covered more than a third of
the population, were “financially unsustainable”.
The
organisation, which will now close after running up a £26m deficit, denied that
it had deliberately underbid for the contracts despite evidence unearthed by
the BMJ that it had underpriced the cost of running NHS 111 by as much as £30m
and launched in some areas with a quarter of the recommended staff.
Dame
Barbara Hakin, chief operating officer at NHS England, acknowledged that at the
launch of the service some NHS 111 call centres had not been properly staffed
and there had been an increase in A&E attendances but the issues had been
“very shortlived”.
She added:
“NHS 111 is now a stable and improving service and we are confident it will
continue to get better.”
The award
of the new contracts has been delayed until 2015, leaving a number of “step in”
providers, dominated by NHS ambulance trusts, to manage 111.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
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