Almost 4 million calls to NHS 111 abandoned day last year

11 Apr 2023

Almost one in five calls to NHS 111 abandoned last year as callers struggle to get through
People calling NHS helpline waited an average of 25 minutes to get through in December
Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey calls for recruitment drive of NHS 111 call handlers on visit to Surrey in South East, the region with worst delays

Almost four million calls to NHS 111 were abandoned last year as people in need of urgent medical advice gave up before getting through, analysis commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed.

The House of Commons Library data shows almost one in five (17.8%) callers to NHS 111 last year gave up before getting through. In total 3.7 million calls to the helpline were abandoned in 2022, equivalent to over 10,000 a day.

It comes as patients faced excruciatingly long delays to get through to NHS 111, with the average time taken to answer a call reaching a staggering 25 minutes in December 2022. The long delays to the NHS 111 service risk piling even more pressure onto overcrowded hospitals, as those unable to get through turn to their local A&E instead.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey will today (Tuesday 11th April) be visiting Surrey, part of the South East region which had the worst NHS 111 delays in the country. A staggering one in two callers in the South East gave up getting through to the helpline in December 2022.

Ed Davey will today call for an emergency recruitment drive of NHS 111 call handlers, including encouraging retired and former staff to return. This would help bring waiting times down to the NHS target of twenty seconds and make sure fewer patients are forced to abandon calls before getting through.

The Liberal Democrats are also calling for a wider rescue plan for local health services, including recruiting 8,000 more GPs and bringing in a Carer’s Minimum Wage to tackle staff shortages in social care.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

“It is completely unacceptable that so many people in need of urgent medical advice are struggling to get through to NHS 111. Staff are exhausted, patients are left in pain, but still Conservative ministers are burying their heads in the sand.

“The government must urgently hire and train more staff to take 111 calls, or else millions more people will be left in pain for far too long.

“Local health services across the country are at breaking point after years of neglect and underfunding from this Conservative Government. From ambulance waiting times and a lack of GP appointments, our health services are buckling under pressure.

“The Conservative Government’s record on health has been a shambles and today’s figures are yet further proof that we cannot trust them to run the NHS.”

Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath who commissioned the analysis, commented:

“People should be able to get the care they deserve when they need it. No-one should be forced to abandon a call because wait times are so long when they are in need of urgent medical help.

“The Government must urgently address this dire situation. We need a proper long-term plan to tackle staff shortages, or the NHS will be exposed to the same winter crises year after year.”

ENDS

Notes to Editor

House of Commons Library research on NHS 111 calls abandoned can be found here.

NHS data on average 111 call wait times in December 2022 can be found here. The average time to answer a call was 1,496 seconds, equivalent to almost 25 minutes.

N.B. Before April 2021, this data was included in NHS England’s NHS 111 Minimum Dataset. Abandoned calls were recorded using a different data set which did not record abandoned calls within the first 30 seconds of a contact being made. The Library estimates that just 10% of calls in 2022 were abandoned within the first 30 seconds.