Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many additional call handlers are being recruited to help manage the NHS 111 service.
NHS 111 is increasing its call-handling and clinical capability to respond to COVID-19. The additional call-handling capability includes the non-telephony resource called the Coronavirus Response Service (CRS), which was established to support the core NHS 111. There are currently over 4,500 call handlers working across the country in the CRS, with plans in place to increase this number over the coming weeks. Work is also underway to increase the clinical capacity within NHS 111 by mobilising clinical resources across the core service and primary care.