West Midlands Ambulance Service to take on 111
Ambulance call handlers will take over the running of Shropshire's NHS 111 non-emergency service from next month in a move criticised today by a county patients group.
West Midlands Ambulance Service is to take over the service across the West Midlands from November 11.
GPs from Shropshire out-of-hours medical service ShropDoc have been bailing out the controversial Government helpline, that provides out-of-hours medical help, since its disastrous 'soft launch' in March. Earlier this year health advice and information service NHS Direct announced it would stop providing the 111 helpline service in the West Midlands by early October.
Health bosses today said they were confident patients would soon receive an improved service, but there are fears the expertise provided by ShropDoc will be lost with the new system.
Andy Williams, lead commissioner for the NHS 111 project team said: "We are confident that West Midlands Ambulance Service will deliver an improved service for our patients and public.
"WMAS has already implemented an upgraded training programme for call handling staff. In addition, as new staff are recruited they will undergo this enhanced training package before becoming operational."
But Bernie Jones, a member of the Shropshire Patients Group, said he was concerned the expertise provided by ShropDoc would be lost.
"People are not going to be speaking to a trained doctor," he said. "The people in the ambulance call centre are trained to a degree but not to the same extent as a GP is. We just can't understand why nobody wants to realise actually this is a very good system."
