NHS 111 Service Failure Escalation and Contingency Deployment Process

Aim of the Session

To equip On Call members with an understanding of their role in escalating issues affecting the delivery of an NHS 111 service across the North, including activating the national Winter Contingency Service.

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NHS 111 & WinterNHS 111 is now an important access point for patients into NHS services, providing health advice and helping to determine where patients receive treatment.

It is therefore anticipated that the NHS 111 service will experience significant increases in demand during winter and particularly during the days over Christmas and New Year.

This is the first winter where the NHS111 service will be operating with close to full national coverage and it is essential that the service performs well so that patients receive the best support possible.

Sarah Pinto-Duschinsky

National Director of Operations & Delivery

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NHS 111 Escalation – Why do we need it?• Provide additional NHS 111 capacity if there is failure in

local contingency arrangements,

• Enable providers to access the winter Contingency Service (WCS) during periods of operational challenges,

• Maintain service stability across numerous NHS 111 providers,

• £15m funding to support NHS 111 provided as part of the £250m winter fund from Department of Health,

• NHS 111 remains a high profile service attracting national interest.

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NHS | Presentation to [XXXX Company] | [Type Date]5

NHS 111 North Providers

NHS 111 Escalation - When to use it (1)• Available from the 27th November 13 to 31st March 14

• Local providers experience significant and unresolved problems

• When local business continuity/contingency arrangements has been exhausted

• Meets a strict national criteria for activating the WCS

• National infrastructure/software failure e.g. Adastra

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NHS 111 Escalation - When to use it (2)National Contingency Capacity Criteria:

• Percentage of calls answered in 60 seconds is less than 60% (normal level 95%)

• Duration of underperformance is greater than 2 hours

• All internal contingency and possible capacity has been exhausted

• Other additional information, e.g. nurse capacity, volume shortage, sustained infrastructure outage

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NHS 111 Escalation – How is it activated?

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NHS 111 Service Area Significant Failure/under-performance Recognised

Provider implements its own contingency arrangements and procedures to rectify

issue quickly.If internal provider actions cannot resolve the

issue the Provider Informs Lead Commissioner (CCG) on call as soon as possible by phone and confirmed in email

Lead Commissioner (CCG) informs Area Team on call director**

If a Technical/systems issue the Provider will raise issue with appropriate system vendor e.g. BT, Advanced and get incident number *

Provider Level Actions

NHS 111 Escalation - How is it activated?Commissioner & Area Team

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**Use local on call contact details

NHS 111 Escalation – How is it activated?Regional Team

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NHS 111 Escalation

National Process

Next Steps• Training to be completed by 29th November,

• Lead area teams & CCGs to be trained (2 weeks),

• Regional first ‘on calls’ trained in priority of on call rota,

• Regional Operations Team to provide support to ‘on calls’ to build confidence,

• Further reading to be circulated.