NHS patient triage hotline stops nurses handling calls

Nurses and non-medical staff have been prevented from taking patient calls to the NHS coronavirus helpline amid concerns over the safety of their advice.

The Covid-19 Clinical Assessment Service (CCAS) is a branch of the NHS 111 phone line and is designed to assess patients showing signs of coronavirus to determine whether they need to be taken to hospital or seen by a GP.

A leaked email, shared with The Independent, shows that an audit of calls to the telephone assessment service found more than half were potentially unsafe for patients, with at least one patient possibly coming to harm as a result of the way their assessment was handled.

The helpline was set up at the start of the pandemic to divert patients with symptoms to a phone-based triage to relieve pressure on GPs. GPs, nurses and allied health professionals were recruited to speak to patients after they were flagged by NHS 111 call handlers.

The use of non-medical staff was first paused in July amid concerns about the quality of call handling.

In a message to staff on 14 August, Enid Povey, the clinical assurance director for the National Pandemic Response Service, said: “Following pausing nurses and allied healthcare professionals working on the CCAS in order to strengthen the training requirements for this cohort of staff, we have undertaken a further round of call audits of nurses and AHPs as agreed. Since pausing, we have listened to a significant number of calls and so far over 60 per cent of calls have not passed the criteria demonstrating a safe call.

“Unfortunately, these call audits resulted in a number of clinical incidents having to be raised. These incidents are currently being investigated, with one escalated as a serious untoward incident with potential harm to the patient. We have therefore taken the difficult decision to continue to pause all nurses and AHPs working on CCAS.”