Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of the 111 NHS telephone service on attendance at hospital accident and emergency departments.

NHS 111 providers across England conduct patient follow up surveys on the NHS 111 service. The results for the year ending September 2014 showed that 30% of patients said they would have used accident and emergency services if they had not contacted NHS 111. This compares with a national rate of 8% of NHS 111 calls answered that directed patients to accident and emergency services.

These results indicate that in a high proportion of cases NHS 111 has been effective in offering patients a service choice which, if followed, would direct more cases to non-emergency services than if NHS 111 was not available.

There is a very active programme of work involving NHS England, working with local commissioners and NHS 111 providers, to improve referrals to alternative services. This programme is starting to see more patients who call NHS 111 directed to services for a lower acuity.