Around one in 20 calls made to the NHS 111 helpline result in unnecessary attendance at emergency departments within 24 hours, despite callers being advised to seek alternative forms of care, reveals an analysis published in BMJ Open.
Women and those calling on behalf of young children under the age of five were more likely to go to emergency care in these circumstances, while callers who had spoken to a clinician were less likely to do so, the analysis shows.
In 2016-17, half (9.7 million) of visits to hospital emergency departments (EDs) in England resulted in patients receiving either no treatment or advice and guidance only, suggesting their symptoms could have been dealt with elsewhere.
This study analysed the known outcomes of 16,563,946 calls from a total of 38,585,200 (47%) made to NHS 111 from all regions of England between March 2015 and October 2017.
The results showed that for every 1,000 callers, 779 were not advised to seek emergency care, 83 (5.5%) of whom nevertheless attended EDs within 24 hours of making the call. Of these, 42 could have been effectively dealt with elsewhere, the authors said.
Factors associated with lower likelihood of ignoring the advice included clinician input to the call and being a patient at a general practice where it was relatively easy to get an appointment.
Factors associated with greater likelihood of attending despite the NHS 111 advice included female sex and the patient being under five years of age.
