'Don't send 111 helpline emergencies to us': GPs say they do not have time for more patients Objection to plans to beef up helpline to ensure patients can see a doctor But senior family doctors say they are too busy to cope with extra work By Sophie Borland GPs are threatening to refuse to see patients passed on to them by NHS 111 call centre staff. They say they do not have time for more patients and will not be told what to do by helpline staff who are not medically trained. NHS medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh announced plans in November to beef up the helpline to ensure patients can see or speak to a doctor quickly to take pressure off A&E units. Busy: GPs are threatening to refuse to see patients passed on to them by NHS 111 call centre staff He wants call centre staff to book patients for an appointment at their surgery or out-of-hours clinic or arrange for a GP to phone them back to offer advice. Surgeries that refuse to co-operate could be shut down. But senior family doctors say surgeries are too busy to cope. The helpline was rolled out last spring as a one-stop service providing medical help to patients whose condition was not serious enough for a 999 call. Patients are asked questions by a call centre worker with no medical training who gives advice or arranges a GP appointment or call. But the system has been so shambolic that many patients have struggled to get through, while others have mistrusted the advice and gone to A&E anyway. Family doctors say they will not be told what to do by helpline staff who are not medically trained. Stock image Dr Peter Holden, a GP in Matlock, Derbyshire, who is in charge of negotiating arrangements on 111 for the British Medical Association, said: â€˜Weâ€™re already seeing 60 to 70 patients a day. We cannot do more safely. We are saturated.â€™ Speaking to the British Medical Journal, he added: â€˜We are not going to have some lay operative working a computer programme telling us how to practice medicine. Weâ€™re not having it, end of.â€™ A spokesman for NHS England, which runs the Health Service, said GPs were contractually required to â€˜care for patients as necessaryâ€™, adding: â€˜We are working with the BMA to... make sure they meet this obligation.â€™