Calling 111

NHS111 is a national healthcare telephone advice service, delivered by different providers across the country to a national standard.

From 1 October 2020 SECAmb, supported by IC24, is providing NHS111 across all of Kent, Medway and Sussex. NHS111 in Surrey Heartlands is provided by Practice Plus Group and in Surrey Heath by South Central Ambulance Service.

NHS111 can help if you have an urgent medical problem and you’re not sure what to do. The service aims to make it easier for people to access healthcare services when they need medical help fast, but do not consider it to be a life-threatening situation.

Calls to the NHS111 service from landlines and mobile phones are free of charge and the service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to respond to people’s healthcare needs when:

• You don’t know who to call for medical help or don’t have a GP to call
• You are unsure if you need to go to A&E or another NHS urgent care service
• You require health information or reassurance about what to do next
• You require an urgent repeat prescription that cannot wait until your GP is available

Calls are answered by trained Health Advisors and referred to Clinical Advisors when required. Callers to NHS111 can be provided with self-care advice, health information or referred and booked into a number of services, including but not limited to GP practices, GP home visiting services, Urgent Treatment Centres, dentists, opticians, sexual health clinics, mental health services and, in the near future, Accident and Emergency departments.

If you need to contact the NHS for urgent care you can do so in the following ways:

• By contacting your own GP practice by telephone, or via the NHS app
• By dialling 111 or visiting NHS 111 Online which refers you into the 111 telephone service based on certain assessment outcomes
• By dialling 999

If you have difficulties communicating or hearing, you can:

• Call 18001 111 on a textphone
• Use the NHS 111 British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter service if you are deaf and want to use the phone service
• Tell us you need to speak to someone in another language – we have translators who can help.

It is important you should only call 999 for life-threatening emergencies that require an immediate response. However, if a call to NHS111 is assessed as being a medical emergency, the service can dispatch an ambulance directly and provide first aid advice to the caller until ambulance clinicians arrive, without the need to transfer the call, or for the caller to repeat any information.

Covid-19

If you have any concerns regarding contracting Covid-19, please visit the NHS Website for the latest NHS advice.

How do I provide feedback on the service?

If you’d like to provide feedback on any service provided by SECAmb, be that a compliment or a concern, see our concerns and complaints page.

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