West Midlands Ambulance Service to stop providing 111 helpline

The contract for the West Midlands 111 medical helpline will be picked up by DHU Healthcare

West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) says it will hand over the running of the 111 helpline from October to concentrate on its emergency service.

The 111 service in the West Midlands gets one-and-a-half million calls each year and is one of the top performing services in England.

DHU Healthcare, which covers the East Midlands, has been awarded the contract and the two services will be merged.

About 450 members of staff may potentially be affected by the change.

The ambulance trust, which has run the 111 service since November 2019, said it wanted to focus on improving its 999 service.

"What is important is that patients will not see any change in the way they access NHS 111 across the East and West Midlands," WMAS chief executive Anthony Marsh said.

Mr Marsh said he appreciated it would be an "unsettling time for staff".

Winter period

The trust said it would be working with the workforce and unions as further information emerged about how DHU would run the contract.

DHU said it wanted to find a call centre location which would minimise disruption to staff currently based in Brierley Hill.

Mark Axcell, the chief executive of the NHS's Black Country Integrated Care Board, which awarded the 18-month contract to DHU, said he was confident the new provider would be in place before the winter period.

The move will see the NHS 111 services across the East and West Midlands integrated into a single shared model.

Stephen Bateman, DHU chief executive, said the company - which has already been awarded an outstanding rating from the Care Quality Commission for its existing 111 service - looked forward to a "close partnership" with WMAS.

"Our intention is to build on the exceptional service they have grown over the last three years, and to support the staff who join us," he said.

"We know they deliver compassionate, high-quality patient care and we welcome the knowledge, skills and experience they will bring to our DHU family."