The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-10-20.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will review the current performance of the NHS 111 service and take steps in order to ensure that more qualified nurses are used to handle calls from the public.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government has seen successes with the NHS 111 service since its launch, with over a million calls offered to the NHS 111 service in August, of which 93.6% were answered within 60 seconds.
The Government expects all NHS 111 centres to be appropriately staffed to offer people safe care and advice and treatment at all times and has asked NHS England for assurances that the NHS 111 service is doing all it can to help patients. Furthermore the Care Quality Commission has announced it will inspect and rate NHS 111 services by September 2016 to give additional assurances that minimum levels of quality are attained.
New Commissioning Standards for Integrated Urgent Care were published last week by NHS England. Developed jointly with commissioners and providers, the Commissioning Standards will support the transformation of urgent care services; introducing the clinical hub employing a broader range of clinical skills, direct booking into general practitioner appointments, improved clinical governance and staff development amongst other developments. Commissioners will now complete their plans to achieve the Commissioning Standards. A copy is attached.
The commissioning of NHS 111 services is led by local Clinical Commissioning Groups and the safety and effectiveness of NHS 111 services are subject to constant review by local commissioners, monitoring performance and investigating complaints and clinical incidents through existing clinical governance arrangements.
