NHS 111 Out-of-hours service: Public feedback from Somerset, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay

Between June and August 2018, Healthwatch Somerset undertook a series of engagement events and an online survey to understand people’s experiences of using the NHS 111 service. They wanted to find out what worked well for people, what did not work well, and what people thought could be improved when using the NHS 111 service provided by Devon Doctors Ltd.

HW Somerset and HW Devon, Plymouth and Torbay worked together to produce an online survey to record people’s experiences of using the NHS 111 service in the past six months across both counties. 186 people from Devon, Plymouth, Somerset and Torbay completed the online survey.

Key Findings:

• 40.86% (76) of people rated their experience of using the NHS 111 service as ‘very good’.
• 23.66% (44) of respondents waited longer than three hours for an arranged call-back.
• A fifth, 20.43% (38), of commentators never received an arranged call-back.
• Most people, 75.81% (141), said that their call was answered in a timely manner.
• Improved training for call operators was the most common response to the question: In your opinion how could the NHS 111 service be improved?
• Some people, 7.59% (12), told us that they had to call 999 or visit an emergency department due to inadequate responses from the NHS 111 teams.
• 7.53% of comments to the question Is there anything else you would like to tell us? said that calling NHS 111 was quicker or better than access to their registered GP surgery.
• It is evident throughout the feedback that the accuracy and quality of the service people received was not consistent.

A number of recommendations are made in this report.