A VITAL out-of-hours patient service is struggling to cope since a call centre takeover, leaving patients hanging on the phone for what should be instant medical advice.

The new NHS 111 phoneline service for urgent but non-life threatening care has run into problems since a “soft” launch in Worcestershire, initially just to deal with out-of-hours patients, last week.

On Tuesday, March 19, the county’s previous out-of-hours service, run by private firm Harmoni, was switched off, with callers told to redial the new NHS 111 service, which is being delivered by NHS Direct.

But one source close to the operation claimed the 111 line was totally failing to meet the demand, saying they had spoken to people left waiting as long as two hours for their call to be answered.

In the most extreme case, they said they had spoken to one woman who had concerns about her young daughter’s health and waited almost three hours, only to then be told that she should call back the following day.

Your Worcester News has also learned that an 11th hour decision was taken on Friday evening to divert all out-of-hours calls from Worcestershire away from the new 111 system for the weekend to the former out-of-hours service.

Those in charge of the new 111 service admit there have been problems and say they have responded to these immediately to ensure a safe service.

But the source told us they feared patients would be left to suffer if the problems are not resolved immediately.

Wayne Bartlett, regional project director for NHS 111 in the West Midlands, said: “The service was launched last week in the West Midlands in a pre-testing phase for out of hours calls only.

“We have encountered some operational and technical issues which we have immediately responded to, to ensure we deliver a safe service for patients.

“Be assured that our first priority is to ensure patient safety is not compromised and with this in mind we have immediately acted and implemented a number of measures.

“These include working in collaboration with NHS Direct who deliver the service, and with West Midlands Ambulance to ensure that the call handling is handled appropriately and safely at all times. Additional call handlers are being brought in to underpin the service, and we are monitoring the call levels to ensure we have capacity to meet the demand. “We are continuing to monitor the service with our management teams and are reviewing the systems and processes immediately a problem occurs.”

The Department of Health is monitoring the rollout of 111 services across the country and is advising people who experience problems to contact their GP surgeries for out-of-hours care until the issues are resolved.