Warning over 'seriously flawed' NHS 111 line She said "decisive action" was now needed to tackle the problems. Last weekend it emerged that 22 serious incidents are being investigated in connection with the line, including three deaths. Further cases to emerge include that of a grieving widow who spent the last hours of her husband's life on the phone to a call centre walker, begging for pain relief and a man who died of a heart attack last week after 111 staff did not recognise the urgency of his symptoms. Dr Gerada said: "We now have a situation where patients have lost confidence in the new NHS 111 service before it is even fully up and running. The responsibility for this lies at the door of the Government and it is unacceptable to carry on blaming GPs for what is going wrong with the system. Questions also need to be asked about why a completely new system was rolled out on Easter Bank Holiday at the same time as the NHS was getting to grips with the biggest ever top-down reorganisation in its history. The warning came as a senior hospital leader accused the Coalition of causing disorder and overcrowding in Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments, because too many senior staff had been diverted from their work to bring in structural reforms. Chris Hopson of the Foundation Trust Network said that recent problems are the "chickens coming home to roost" after ministers ordered changes which saw 150 NHS organisations abolished and replaced by 212 groups of GPs last month. In recent days there have been growing warnings that A&E units have become unable to cope, with senior figures warning that emergency care is now "out of control" across swathes of the country. Mr Hopson told Health Service Journal that part of the problem was that NHS managers have had to spend too much time bringing in new structures. He said: "We all know everybody's attention has been diverted to planning the [changes to] organisations, while the front line has been trying to pull the system together with duct tape, and generally doing a good job. Mr Hopson said that NHS management bodies and regulators had not co-ordinated their efforts. He said: "From the outside this looks like an omnishambles." A spokesman for the Department for Health said: "NHS 111 will help patients access the whole of the NHS through just one, easy to remember number. The majority of the country has a good 111 service but we know there are still problems in a few areas.To ensure that patients get the best care and treatment, some areas have been given more time to go live with NHS 111. He said problems with waiting times were being addressed. Performance has improved in recent weeks to meet the national standard and we will continue to work closely together to build on this. Almost half of Britons say they or their families have experienced poor care and neglect at the hands of the NHS, a new survey has found. Patients say they routinely struggle to get the treatment they believe they need and experience rudeness, neglect and in some cases physical abuse, according to polling by YouGov. Sixteen per cent said they had personally experienced poor care, while another 30 per cent said their relatives had suffered poor care in the past decade - a total of 46 per cent.