A friend recently became violently ill and needed to call the local emergency NHS out-of-hours service.

Her partner phoned their GP, only to be transferred to the 111 service, which, it turns out, is the local replacement for NHS Direct. This service has been implemented in many parts of the country and has not had the best of reviews.

My friend’s partner spoke to a call centre operator (with no medical training) and was given a long list of computer-generated questions which took 25 minutes to answer.

To her surprise, the computer’s advice was to report to A&E. After being questioned about the validity of this (and an unnecessary use of paramedic resources), the operator duly changed the answers to one of the questions, giving the result she wanted: to be put through to a clinically-trained nurse.

Many people in that situation may have accepted the initial advice, which might explain the unprecedented numbers of people, many with minor ailments, overwhelming local A&E departments.

The nurse said they would receive a phone call from a doctor (within two hours) and that, if things got worse, my friend’s partner should call again. When asked if there was a call reference (to access the previous session) she was told they would have to go through the whole process again.

They were eventually called by a doctor with an Ashford area code, who advised them to stay put and contact their own GP as soon as possible.

What if they had urgently required a home visit?

Everyone was pleasant enough, but this doesn’t offset a potentially dangerously inadequate service, which appears to be placing more pressure on over-stretched A&E resources.

Assuming other people have had a similar experience, how come there has not been a massive outcry?

How does our local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which has commissioned this service, imagine vulnerable people living on their own are going to manage jumping through these hoops?

Does the CCG honestly believe this is all the residents and NHS workers of Brighton and Hove deserve? We should be holding them to account.

Madeleine Dickens, Compton Road, Brighton