It has been reported this week that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has found that the 111 service run by the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) was “consistently failing” and has been rated as inadequate.
The CQC is currently inspecting all NHS 111 services but the inspection of the SWASFT was brought forward following concerns of patients and staff.
South West NHS 111 Service Report
A team of inspectors visited two call centres run by the Trust in March and found that the service had been consistently failing to meet national standard and that too many patients abandoned their calls due to long waiting times.
Inspectors found that there were frequently not enough staff to take calls or to give clinical advice when it was needed. It was also found that calls were sometimes being answered by staff who were not trained to assess patients’ symptoms.
National standards state that 95% of calls to the NHS 111 service should be answered within 60 seconds. However, inspectors found that SWASFT was only achieving 72% at one time.
The CQC issued a Warning Notice on 26 May 2016 stating that the Trust must make significant improvements to protect the safety of people using its NHS 111 services by July 2016.
Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, was reported as saying:
“We found that patients were at risk of harm because the triaging system was not good enough. Too many people whose call was urgent were not being assessed in relation to their medical needs in a timely manner. A lot of people needing less urgent advice might have to wait all day for a call back. Despite the best efforts of staff – the service was not doing enough to identify why this was happening or what needed to be done to improve. The trust had known of these concerns but it took the staff to bring them out into the open to ensure that something was done.”
The Chief Executive of the Trust, Ken Wenman, said:
“The CQC report does point out that we were understaffed… it’s very difficult to recruit and retain members of staff, particularly clinical staff in this type of service, and that’s the focus that we’re going to be having as part of the improvements that we’re going to make over the coming months.”
The CQC inspection highlights significant concerns with this particular Trust’s 111 service and makes for worrying reading. The NHS tells patients to use the 111 service if they urgently need medical help or advice but it’s not a life threatening situation. The failings identified by the CQC at this Trust mean that many patients in urgent situations have been left waiting for prolonged periods when they should have received timely and appropriate advice. It is clear that patient safety has therefore been put at risk.
It is vital that the Trust now makes large steps forward to achieve the improvements that are required.
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Danielle Young is an Associate in our Medical Negligence team.
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