NHS111 Update for Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent

Published 8 August 2013

In Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent we have taken a proactive decision to develop an interim solution for the provision of NHS 111 service, and after engaging with other out-of-hours service providers, we have appointed Staffordshire Doctors Urgent Care (SDUC) to work up plans for implementation of the 111 service locally.

SDUC are part of the Vocare Group which currently provides services to over 1.5 million people, including people in Stoke-on-Trent and parts of Staffordshire as the Out of Hours provider. They have a history of providing urgent care services dating back 17 years and are a partner in the North East England NHS 111 service which is one of the best performing in the country.

Patient safety is of upmost importance to us and we will not announce a date for this interim solution to “go-live” until we are satisfied it is totally safe and robust. It will then be introduced in stages, so that we can get the service absolutely right for each local community.

NHS 111 remains a statutory requirement for each Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to provide to their patients and where it is working well, the benefits of the urgent care system are really being highlighted (including in the North East where the service is going from strength to strength0.

In the meantime Staffordshire people who require support outside GP opening hours should continue to call their regular GP number. (This system is currently working well. Calls are currently being answered in the required timeframe, and there has been no significant increase in attendances at Accident & Emergency or in ambulance despatches.)

We appreciate that local communications about NHS 111 have been limited in recent months – this has been regionally and nationally driven due to commercial sensitivities. However, we can now look forward to keeping you fully informed about developments with the service locally.

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