This is an article from The Daily Telegraph today – figures are
now coming through which prove what this Blog has been saying for over a year.
The old ‘NHS Direct’ phone line was a real help to patients;
it offered quick access to experienced nurses who could confidently divert patients
away from Accident and Emergency.
The new ‘111’ line is staffed by unqualified staff who use a
computer programme to advise patients.
If in doubt? Send them to A and E because you can’t go wrong.
It’s not the whole answer, of course. The real delays are
because too many Nursing jobs have been lost, too many beds are empty and too
many wards have shut.
The effect of this is that when patients are treated in A and
E but need in patient time – there aren’t the beds.
Every one waits, operations are cancelled, simple problems
become emergencies.
By Laura Donnelly, Health Editor
Daily
Telegraph.
14 Jan 2015
NHS 111 is
to blame for almost all of the last year's rise in Accident & Emergency
admissions, one of the country's most senior medics has said.
Dr Cliff
Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said it was
"absurd" to suggest patients were wrong to go to casualty units, when
large numbers were being directed there by the telephone service.
Speaking at
a session of the Commons health select committee on Wednesday, he said the NHS
needed to change its systems so they work better for patients.
He told MPs
that the 111 phoneline, which was supposed to help patients and relieve
pressures on hospitals has had the opposite effect.
"The
reason these people are attending these emergency departments is because we
told them to," he said.
"Of
the 450,000 extra attendances in the system in the last year, 220,000 were
advised by NHS 111 to come to the emergency department and another 220,000 had
an ambulance despatched to them by NHS 111.
"If
you put those figures together you have more than 95 per cent of the rise in
type 1 [major A&E unit] attendances. I don't think we should blame people
for attending the emergency department when we've told them to go there. It's
absurd."
Earlier
this month, emergency medicine experts said that when nurses handled calls on
the helpline's predecessor, NHS Direct, they had the experience to know when an
A&E visit was not appropriate.
It came as
figures emerged showing that NHS 111 sends an extra 50 per cent more patients
to A&E at the weekend, when GP surgeries and other clinics are shut -
increasing the strain on already stretched hospitals.
Latest
figures show A&E waiting times in England are now at their worst levels in
more than a decade.
Suzanne
Mason, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Sheffield said the
numbers of patients being sent to A&E after calling 111 was a huge problem.
She said
ambulance services in some parts of the country had been "brought to their
knees" by call handlers, who follow a risk-averse computer symptom
checker, that defaults to A&E as a safety-first option.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
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