A new 24-hour health hotline is failing patients, according to an undercover television investigation.

Channel 4's Dispatches programme, NHS Undercover, found the non-emergency 111 system had staff shortages, long waits for callers and in some cases ambulances were being called out unnecessarily.

Two reporters posing as trainee call handlers secretly filmed at centres run by the private health care company, Harmoni, which has a third of the hotline contracts in England.

Dispatches said the footage shot at the branches in Dorking in Surrey and Bristol reveals "serious failings in the system".

The programme said its reporters found many patients were left waiting for longer than the 10-minute target for a callback from a clinician and some workers who were not clinicians were filmed giving medical advice to the undercover journalists.

They also uncovered concerns about training, staff shortages and fears the system is leading to unnecessary callouts for ambulances, putting additional pressure on an already stretched A&E service, Dispatches said.

One Harmoni call centre manager was secretly filmed admitting: "We had a very bad service. Still realistically on the weekends we still are unsafe. We don't have the staff to deal with the calls that are coming in." http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/undercover-report-reveals-staff-failures-in-111-call-centres-8735673.html