18 December 2009
The East Midlands has been named as a pilot site to trial a new 111 non-emergency telephone number for the NHS.
OFCOM has announced that it has designated the number 111 for use by the NHS to complement the existing 999 emergency number. The East Midlands will be one of three regions to trial how the number could be used to make it easier for patients to access urgent care services.
We will be trialling the new number in Lincolnshire and Nottingham city first and plan to launch it later in 2010 before rolling it out to other parts of the region. 111 will not be available to call until the two trials start next year and we will advertise the new service in the weeks before it goes live.
In From Evidence to Excellence, the region’s vision for transforming local healthcare over the next decade, we committed to introducing a single point of access for urgent care as we had identified that the public often find it confusing knowing where to turn to for help in non-emergency situations.
Since publishing our vision in June 2008 a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes across the region to improve our current systems so that we have better information on what services are available, particularly out-of-hours, and can refer people to the right help for their urgent care need first time. Having better information means we can often avoid the need for someone to call for an ambulance or go to their local A&E, as we can provide them with help in the community, refer them to a walk-in centre or arrange for them to see a GP.
Dr Ruth Livingstone, a GP from Stamford and the regional clinical lead for the programme, said: “People know to dial 999 if they are in a life-threatening situation but we recognise that in other circumstances it is not so obvious to know where to turn to for help, particularly if it is outside normal GP surgery hours or if you are away from home.
“We want to make it easier for people to access the right help at the right time and that means knowing exactly what is available, where and when and being able to refer patients into the most appropriate service. We are already doing a lot to help emergency, hospital, community and GP services work better together to achieve this. Having an easy to remember phone number for the public is the final piece in the jigsaw.”
The number will not replace existing health service numbers and wherever people know which number to call for the service they need they should continue to use it, for example people should still call their normal GP surgery number to make routine appointments.
About the OFCOM number and pilots
Ofcom is the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services. Under section 63 of the Communications Act 2003, Ofcom has a duty to ensure that the best use is made of the UK’s telephone number resource. Every year Ofcom allocates millions of telephone numbers to communications providers for homes, businesses and organisations to use. For further information about Ofcom please visit: www.ofcom.org.uk.
For further background information on 111 visit: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/Urgentcare/index.htm
About Towards Excellence
Towards Excellence is the implementation programme for delivering the planned improvements we set out in our vision for the local NHS, From Evidence to Excellence, which was published in June 2008. In it we set out ambitious proposals for the local NHS to make sure we deliver health services of the highest quality which meet the needs of everyone living in the East Midlands.
We want a local NHS which delivers:
- Better patient experience
- Accessible services
- Safe and high quality services
- Best value for money
- Improvements to people’s health
- Real influence for clinicians and patients to shape services.
Our vision was created with the help of hundreds of doctors, nurses and other clinical staff working on the frontline caring for local patients on a daily basis. Our vision also drew on the experience and views of thousands of local patients and members of the public who told us what was important to them from a high quality local health service.
