By New Worker correspondent

Unison, the major NHS union, says members handling urgent medical calls on the NHS 111 service are leaving in droves due to heavy workloads, staff shortages and abusive callers.

Six ambulance services in England and Wales have suffered from 46 per cent of staff leaving their jobs for these reasons. Yorkshire had the highest staff turnover of 76 per cent, with the South East Coast on 62 and South Central on 44.

In all, 300,000 days were lost to ill health at the six organisations from 2021 to 2024. In particular, 91,681 days were lost in 2023/24, 31 days’ sick leave for every call handler, dramatically above the UK average of four days for the workforce generally.

South East Coast Ambulance Service more than doubled that with 64 days of sick leave per handler.

A survey of more than 200 staff reported that 82 per cent said the volume of calls was the worst part of the job, with 75 citing staff shortages and 66 per cent complaining about aggressive and abusive callers. As a result, 72 per cent said they had considered leaving in the last year (which will make things worse for the remaining staff).

Some 72 per cent reported that better pay would make the job more tolerable and encourage them to stay. Unison says this could be partly remedied by moving them up a grade on the NHS pay scale.

Contracting out of 111 services should be reversed and brought back in-house to allow greater integration of 111 and 999 services for the benefit both patients and staff.

Sharan Bandesha, Unison’s national ambulance officer, points out that: “NHS 111 is a lifeline for patients and their families. The service provides vital advice and access to care when they urgently need it. But staff are under immense pressure and it’s no surprise many don’t stay in the role. Bringing 111 services back in-house, paying staff properly for their work and employing enough staff to alleviate pressure would help ensure NHS 111 is fit for the future.”

A necessarily anonymous 111 call handler added: “During night shifts, we get a lot of mental health calls that we have no training for. We’re not even provided with guidance for callers that express suicidal intent or who are having a severe mental health crisis. These calls are very challenging.”