Star comment: We need a health helpline that works
When a group so obviously committed to local health services as a League of Friends labels the new NHS 111 line as farcical, then you know it really is time for action.
The Ludlow Community Hospital League of Friends certainly pulls no punches, also describing the advice line as a "dismal failure" – and it's at grass roots level that people have their fingers on the pulse of local feeling.
All non-emergency calls in the county used to be handled by Shropdoc, run by local GPs, before the 111 service – manned by non-clinical workers in a Birmingham call centre – was introduced in March.
But it has been a shambolic transition, badly handled and thought-out and with our county GPs having to step in and bail it out time and time again.
Everybody agrees that the 111 service is not necessarily a bad idea, but that the execution has been poor.
So understandably questions have been asked about the quality and numbers of call handlers – but they have not been answered. So confused are local people that they really do not know which way to turn, and this has had a massive knock-on effect.
According to the chairman of the Ludlow league, Peter Corfield, this makes for a potential nightmare.
If the 111 line cannot cope with the volume of calls then people seeking advice will look elsewhere for out of hours help, to Shropdoc or even their local A&E department, placing even more pressure on the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital or Telford's Princess Royal Hospital.
It has been suggested that the introduction of the NHS 111 line appears to all come down to cost, to competitive tendering, to accepting the cheapest bid. This is simply not good enough.
If the system is not working then it has to be looked at again, as a matter of the greatest urgency.
Anything that can affect people's lives has to be seen as the number one priority. A hit and miss operation is just not acceptable. There has to be one advice line that works, and works well.
We should accept nothing less.
