Just three GPs are on call to make night-time visits to sick patients across Huddersfield, the Examiner can reveal.

During evenings and weekends, people who feel they are ill but not seriously enough to call 999 are advised to ring the NHS 111 service.

But many have complained of huge delays waiting for call backs or home visits.

Now health chiefs have admitted only three GPs are on duty for house calls on weekday evenings and four at weekends.

The news comes as data requested by the Examiner revealed almost 200 sick patients in Huddersfield waited over six hours for a home visit last year.

The 111 service, run by Yorkshire Ambulance Service and sub-contracted to Bradley-based Local Care Direct, has been struggling to meet its targets since its launch in 2013.

Performance figures presented to GPs and officials on Greater Huddersfield’s clinical commissioning group (CCG), show it missed targets for face-to-face consultations for urgent and emergency cases every single month in 2014/15.

For telephone triage, a target to call unwell people back within 10 minutes, was also missed for the entire year.

A second target to call people back within two hours was also missed for 12 months in a row.

CCG figures show dozens of people have complained about NHS 111. Complaints shot up from a handful a month at the start of 2014 to more than 100 across the first four months of 2015.

Local Care Direct, Bradley, Huddersfield
Local Care Direct, Bradley, Huddersfield

Greater Huddersfield CCG said it had the equivalent of 7.5 GPs on a rota to attend the out-of-hours calls.

Between three and 15 other GPs are contracted to do telephone support when NHS 111 call centre handlers deem the call needs clinical expertise.

Locum GPs taking on the work can be paid as much as £100 per hour earning them thousands each week for doing a couple of 12-hour shifts.

A spokesman for the CCG said: “Where it is assessed that a home visit is needed, the out-of-hours provider is required to respond within one, two or six hours.

“In a few cases if a home visit is not conducted in the six hours window then the patients are called by telephone and clinical assessment is completed and advice is provided on what to do should their condition change before the mobile doctor arrives.

“This is managed appropriately according to patient’s clinical needs and standard protocols.”

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The spokesman said doctors worked across boundaries and in some cases ones from neighbouring areas in Calderdale, Wakefield and Bradford carried out home visits within the Greater Huddersfield area.

She added: “The West Yorkshire Urgent Care service continues to face a significant increase in demand locally managing more than 270,000 cases last year.

“The CCG is confident that the service provider is managing this increased demand and will continue to work together with them to respond to any challenges this presents.

“In spite of high demand the service received 91% positive feedback from patients.”

The British Medical Association (BMA), a trade union for GPs, said: “The BMA was raising concerns about NHS 111 before its disastrous launch and continues to have doubts about how the service is being run in some parts of the country.

“There have been improvements in a number of areas but it is clear that in places like Huddersfield there remain real issues with how the service is being delivered.

“Nationally, there is still a question mark over whether NHS 111 contracts have the proper levels of funding and training for call operators so that when patients do call they get the best service.”