Throughout the winter period, DHU Healthcare has been doing some fantastic work relieving pressure on the wider NHS system and 111 calls through its national contingency base in the West Midlands.
DHU Healthcare, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, provides urgent care within A&Es, Urgent Treatment Centres and GP surgeries, in and out of hours clinical specialist services and provides a CQC Outstanding 111 provision at the heart of the nation’s NHS 111 services.
With NHS 111 Advice Centres based in Derby, Chesterfield, Leicester and Chippenham, out of hours, GP, community and urgent care services in Leicestershire, Northants, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and beyond, DHU Healthcare opened a new building in Oldbury near Birmingham, pictured above. This has been used as a base to take national contingency calls from other parts of the country to help relieve pressure during this incredibly challenging winter.
Supporting the wider NHS system
The national contingency supports ambulance services that provide a NHS 111 service as well as the 999 service for a period of four months from the beginning of November 2022. At times of high demand between 7 am and 11 pm 7 days a week, a percentage of these calls will come through the Advice Centre at Oldbury where DHU’s Health Advisors and Clinicians will take the call, taking the pressure off their 111 service.
David Hurn is Deputy Managing Director of DHU111, he said: “Whilst support like this has been offered to these services before, nothing to this scale has ever been commissioned so we’re blazing a trail. Since taking our first calls on November 3rd last year we have answered over 127,000 calls, from which more than 90% of which have been answered within 60 seconds, alongside a very low caller abandonment rate of 1.2% which is a fantastic achievement.
“We already received calls from the London Ambulance Service (LAS) but, as part of this wider support programme, we now take calls from the Yorkshire and South Central Ambulance Services (YAS and SCAS) as well. We’re able to control the level we receive between us so, for example, if YAS is experiencing high demand, we might agree to take 50% of their 111 calls.
“It takes the pressure off ambulance services that are struggling to meet demand for their 111 service, that helps to relive pressure on the entire system within their region. The patient receives a better experience because they are treated and advised faster, our ambulance service colleagues are happy because the pressure, to a certain extent, is relieved and we’re happy because we are providing a service that is helping to meet the national requirement.”
Preparing to expand
As part of the National Contingency contract, DHU Healthcare has brought in around 200 additional Health Advisors, boosting employment for the West Midlands region. The Community Interest Company is looking to increase that capacity to more than 400 by the end of February ahead of taking over the West Midlands 111 contract at the beginning of March.
David added: “The Health Advisors will stay on with us and we’ve been stepping up our recruitment ahead of going live on March 1st, by which time we will be providing a 111 service for more than 90% of the entire Midlands region. By that time the national contingency support will be stepped down as we begin to come out of winter and we haven’t yet had any in depth discussion about repeating the service, but it is certainly something we would look to consider.
“Our colleagues in the services we have been supporting have been very complimentary and looking at the figures in terms of calls received, response time and the very low abandonment rate, it has been a great success.”
You can read more about the Health Advisor, Joanna Przybylska, who took the first SCAS national contingency call in January by clicking here and Emily Cleaver who took our first YAS call in December by clicking here.
Publish date: 23 February 2023