EMERGENCY hospital admissions in Dorset have been at ‘unprecedented’ levels since the summer with urgent care reaching the highest level four times in September alone.

Calls to NHS111 is also at similar high category in the county with almost 35,000 calls this year, compared to just under 28,000 at the same time in 2020.

The regional ambulance service is also feeling the strain and has been at the highest escalation level, just one down from major emergency status, since June. Between September 7 and 10, a major incident was declared because of the demand for ambulances.

Acute hospital bed occupancy locally remains above 90 per cent with patients ready to be discharged but often unable to leave because there is no appropriate care package available for them at the time.

This has a knock-on throughout local hospitals with some elective procedures having to be cancelled because there are no beds available after surgery.

Dorset Council’s people and health scrutiny committee heard that talks are underway with ‘other transport providers’ to take the pressure off ambulances by, possibly, taking non critical patients to hospitals, minor injury units or other settings.

Faisil Sethi, medical director for Dorset Healthcare University NHS Trust, said with all minor injury units locally now re-opened (in June) it was hoped they could ease some of the pressure on emergency departments and, with NHS111, get patients the right advice in the right place, the first time.

He said unless life-threatening people should use the 111 phone service which would then advise on the next steps, including booking appointments at minor injuries units, emergency department or, from next month, booking some GP appointments.

The director said Dorset’s 111 services were ranked in the top third for performance nationally although average times to answer calls had increased, mainly due to an rise in calls, almost doubling over a three year period.

The meeting heard that since February, as soon as lockdown was eased, 111 calls began to increase.

Local research suggests the rise is mainly from local callers, rather than holidaymakers.

An extra £1m has been made available locally to meet winter pressures in addition to £1m already spent to increase call handling capacity.

Some of the new money will be spent on an out of county private GP provider to strengthen Dorset’s clinical assessment service, part of the 111 service. This additional capacity should start within the next six weeks.