NHS phone triage system sends too many to emergency departments, study finds

Almost three quarters of patients sent to hospital emergency departments by an NHS 111 telephone triage centre went unnecessarily, a new study has found.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge analysed 1474 cases where GPs reviewed decisions taken by non-medical NHS 111 call handlers to send patients to emergency departments from a call centre in Cambridgeshire. The study, published in BMJ Open,1 found that the GPs advised attendance at an emergency department in only 400 (27%) of these cases.

The GPs advised that in …