Paramedics slam new 111 non-emergency phone service A whistleblower at (SECAmb), which is based in Brighton, East Sussex, said the new helpline was putting patients at risk. She said: "It's just gone mental. We're getting pretty much double the callouts - and a lot of them are just ridiculous. Ambulance crews are going without breaks for 12 hours or more. The impact was immediate and it's getting much worse. The £28 million contract to provide the 111 service in Sussex has been awarded to Harmoni and sees a team of 250 "advisors" supported by 60 clinical advisors and GPs. Call handlers, who are given four weeks training, are told to dispatch an ambulance directly if they believe the caller to be at risk. But the paramedic said: "There are certain trigger words that mean they automatically call an ambulance. So we got called out to a 16-year-old girl who wanted advice about her period because she said she was bleeding. A lady phoned up for advice about her cat, which had diarrhoea, and somehow it got transferred through to us. One person even called up complaining of an ingrown toenail, but by the end of the call the person on the other end thought he was suffering from a heart attack. The people who are taking these calls aren't medically trained. They're passing stupid calls on to us because they don't want to make a mistake. The insider added that that high number of callouts meant that ambulances were taking longer to respond to 999 calls about genuine emergencies. She said: "While we are at people's houses dealing with these ridiculous cases we are hearing calls on the radio about people suffering with cardiac arrests. But there are no vehicles to take them - it's just disastrous. NHS bosses introduced the new 111 service with the aim of making it easier for patients to get medical help, particularly at evenings and weekends. But last month the British Medical Association said the helpline was already "in chaos" and urged the government to delay its full introduction. Kevin Long, assistant branch secretary of Unison's SECAmb Sussex branch, said the increase in demand in Sussex was "more than we can cope with." He said: "There has certainly been an increase in the volume of work since the rollout. It's not working as well as everybody would have hoped and the potential is there that patient safety is being compromised. The increase in calls is putting pressure on a system that is already having difficulties. And there are calls where we turn up and the patient tells us they had just phoned up to ask for advice. It's still early days but these problems need to be sorted. A spokesman for SECAmb said: "South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, along with all part of the NHS in our region and nationally is currently extremely busy. Demand has risen to levels far in excess of our expectations throughout 2012-13. As with any new service that is introduced there is period of bedding in that is required which is why a phased approach has been taken to introducing NHS 111. Our 111 staff receive an intensive 4-week training programme and a number of formal assessments and on-going call audits maintains quality. SECAmb assesses all calls in the same way using NHS Pathways - a recognised tool with Royal College approval - when they are transferred from the NHS 111 service to ensure the system is robust. We are continuing to work hard to ensure patients using 111 receive the service they deserve. Harmoni failed to provide a comment.