Nurses barred from NHS 111 Covid clinical division after 60% of calls unsafe

The NHS 111 service has permanently stopped nurses and other healthcare professionals in a clinical division handling calls with people suspected of having COVID-19 after an audit of recorded calls found more than 60% were not safe.

The audit was triggered in July after many of the medical professionals recruited to work in that clinical division of the 111 service sounded the alarm, saying they did not feel “properly skilled and competent” to fulfil such a critical role.

An investigation was launched into several individual cases after the initial review found that assurances could not be given “in regard to the safety of these calls”, according to an email, seen by the Guardian, from the clinical assurance director of the National Covid-19 Pandemic Response Service. In a further email on 14 August, she told staff that after listening to a “significant number” of calls “so far over 60% … have not passed the criteria demonstrating a safe call”.

A number of “clinical incidents” were being investigated, she said, because some calls “may have resulted in harm”. One case had been “escalated as a serious untoward incident with potential harm to the patient”.

NHS England declined to answer questions about any aspect of these apparent safety failings, saying it was the responsibility of the South Central ambulance service (SCAS), which set up a section of NHS 111 called the Covid-19 Clinical Assessment Service (CCAS).

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Source: The Guardian, 1 October 2020