PATIENTS were left waiting for almost two hours for a call-back from the new NHS 111 urgent care phoneline over the Easter period, a leaked report has revealed.

The internal NHS document highlighted problems for the service in the West Midlands on Good Friday, March 29, with just 75 per cent of calls answered within the target 60 seconds – and the longest wait for an answer clocking in at 17-and-a-half minutes.

Thirteen per cent of callers that day abandoned their call to the service, while the longest wait for a call back recorded was one hour and five minutes.

The NHS 111 Easter SitRep report, which has been obtained and published by GP magazine Pulse, shows performance in the region improved over the rest of the four-day weekend, from March 29 to April 1.

At least 99 per cent of calls were answered within 60 seconds every other day, with the next longest wait for an answer just three minutes and 28 seconds, on Easter Saturday, March 30. However, the same day, the longest wait for a call-back was even longer than on Good Friday, at one hour and 47 minutes.

The new helpline was beset by problems after its launch – initially just to handle out-of-hours calls – in the West Midlands late last month, with reports of patients enduring two-hour waits for calls to be answered. Bosses had said that they were on top of the problems and monitoring of the system over Easter had not flagged up any problems.

But when your Worcester News presented NHS 111 West Midlands with the findings of the leaked report, a spokesman admitted there had been difficulties. “We experienced some delays to the call handling on March 29, however we are pleased to confirm that this was unusual,” she said.

“We are monitoring the system on a daily basis and can confirm that there have been no significant delays since then.

“In fact we are currently experiencing a call answer rate of 100 per cent within 60 seconds.”

The full 24/7 national launch of NHS 111 was expected to take place at the start of April but areas that have been experiencing difficulties have been given permission by NHS England to delay until as late as June 30. NHS 111 West Midlands says a date has yet to be set for its full launch, as “further testing is taking place to ensure that the system is robust enough to support a 24/7 service”.

However it is possible that the service could be delayed even further due to concerns the service is placing patients at risk.

The leaked report shows that nationally as few as 32 per cent of NHS 111 calls were being answered within 60 seconds over Easter, with as many as 40 per cent of calls being abandoned.

The national NHS Clinical Commissioners group now says the rollout should be delayed “until commissioners could be assured it was safe for patients”.

A spokesman said: “Local commissioners are keen to ensure that patients have access to high quality, accessible urgent care, and it is clearly not acceptable that patients may be put at risk and their calls may not be answered.”