Issue - items at meetings - Update on 111 Service in Brighton and Hove

Update from the CCG on 111 Service in Brighton and Hove

110.1    The 111 service went live in March 2013, answering all telephone calls that used to go either to NHS Direct or to out of hours telephone lines. It is for non emergency calls but can also dispatch ambulances if needed. The 111 service can provide a clinical assessment over the telephone and provide appropriate advice.

110.2    They have two main performance indicators; (a) calls answered within 60 seconds and (b) abandoned phone calls. For (a), the target is to answer 95% within 60 seconds; locally the service is exceeding this by answering 98-99% calls within 60 seconds. For (b) the target is for an abandonment rate no higher than 5%; locally only 0.6-0.7% calls are abandoned so the service performs well within the targets.

110.3    The CCG has done some local marketing through a campaign called ‘We Could be Heroes’ in the local media. NHS England has put a wider campaign on hold until all services are live across the country, which should be in two to three months.

110.4    Ms Hoban said that the launch of the 111 service had not performed as well as it had been hoped, due to a high demand for the service. Unfortunately this had led to negative experiences for some people and they still held negative views of the service. It was important to address those memories and help to show people that the service had moved on.

110.5    The Healthwatch representative said that they had worked with the CCG to involve communities of interest who might not have known as much about the 111 service. Healthwatch had also surveyed young men, only one third of them were aware of the 111 service. Healthwatch agreed that it would be useful to do some more targeted work.

110.1    The Chair said that the issue of local publicity had been raised at the recent regional HOSC meeting, it had been recognised that a national campaign might not be appropriate at present but regional scrutiny colleagues had felt that it would be useful to have a local promotion.

The comments were noted.