Devon NHS 111 operator 'confident on improving services'

NHS 111 takes calls from the public to ease pressure on hospitals

The new operator of Devon's NHS 111 phone and out-of-hours GP cover says it is confident it can improve services.

The Practice Plus Group is now three weeks into a five-year, £100m contract.

Local hospitals had claimed emergency departments (ED) were busy because a third of people trying to use NHS 111 put the phone down before they got an answer and called 999 or went to an ED.

Practice Plus said it had back-up systems in place to ensure people did not have to wait long.

The company, which has sites in Exeter and Plymouth, already operates medical services for Devon's three prisons: Dartmoor,Exeter and Channings Wood, near Newton Abbot.

It also has a surgical base for NHS and private patients near Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.

'Particular pressures'

When NHS 111 was previously operated by Devon Doctors, health watchdog the Care Quality Commission, had put conditions on its operations to improve its services and it was in special measures for a period.

Kevin Brown, the national integrated urgent care director for Practice Plus, said back-ups included "a networked arrangement" with its other centres around the country to make sure that "access to care for patients continues to be the best it can be, even at the most difficult at times."

He said: "If there are particular pressures in one area for call-outs, those calls will fall over to our other contact centres."