William Mead: 111 Helpline

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I understand what the right hon. Lady is saying, and of course I would listen to her because of her experience, but I reassure her that that is not the only thing that we are doing; we are doing lots of other things. The report makes many recommendations, one of which is to look at the algorithms that the call-handlers use to make sure that they are more sensitive to some of the red-flag signs of sepsis, meningitis and other conditions. There are lots of other recommendations. They include earlier access to clinicians where appropriate, and recommendations on the training of clinicians in the out-of-hours service, the training of GPs and the training of people in hospitals. So we will be undertaking a much bigger body of work as a result of this review.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to support CCGs to commission the 111 service and the out-of-hours service together where appropriate. He may be aware of some concerns in Norfolk about our out-of-hours service. What else is he doing to recruit, retain and support GPs in providing the round-the-clock care that people clearly need?

[Mr Hunt]

I have said before at this Dispatch Box that successive Governments of both parties have under-invested in general practice, and that is part of the reason why it takes too long for many people to get a GP appointment. It is why we have said that we want to have about 5,000 more doctors working in general practice by the end of this Parliament. That is an important part of what we want to do.

The other side is improving our offer to the public. When you have a child with a fever, and you are not sure, and it is the weekend, very often you have a choice between an out-of-hours GP appointment, a weekend appointment at your GP surgery, calling 111 or showing up at an A&E department. It is just confusing to know the right thing to do. If we are to improve standards of care, we need to standardise safety standards across the NHS, including for spotting potential sepsis cases, and that means a much simpler system.