Extra Dental Advisors Recruited For NHS 111 Service

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Health bosses in Sheffield have recruited extra call handlers, dental advisors and pharmacists to man the NHS 111 service, yet the waiting times are still longer than the UK average.

According to figures the service, which is designed to provide advice in non-emergency situations, is letting residents of Sheffield down. Only 32 per cent of callers spoke to a clinical advisor within 10 minutes, which is much lower than the target of 100 per cent and less than 40 per cent were transferred to a service such as out of hours GP care. The figures are particularly bad for weekends and the service, which is run by Yorkshire Ambulance Service, appears to be much busier in Sheffield than other areas in Yorkshire.

In November alone, the Sheffield service received more than 7,000 calls; across the region, 90 per cent of calls were answered by advisors within one minute; however, in Sheffield, less than a third of callers heard back from an advisor within 10 minutes.

The service has already taken on extra members of staff to cope with demand and chiefs are now discussing other measures, which could help to improve the service and cut waiting times. According to a report for NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group, the 111 service in Sheffield is consistently falling short of targets and people are waiting too long to get the advice they need.

NHS 111 was set up to replace NHS Direct. The chief officer of the Clinical Commissioning Group, Idris Griffiths, said that there have been improvements in the service since November and it “performed extremely well over the festive period.” Mr Griffiths also added that a recent poll had suggested that most people were satisfied with the service they received from NHS 111.

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