Debated in Parliament on 14 Sep 2021.
Dr Tan Wu Meng asked the Minister for Health with regard to the utilisation of the COVID-19 Enquiries hotline during the resumption of the Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) (a) whether the Ministry can provide information on (i) the number of calls received during this period and (ii) the overall utilisation percentage of the hotline capacity; (b) what proportion of the time was the hotline at peak utilisation; and (c) what is the number of calls that are (i) unanswered, (ii) dropped while queueing for an operator and (iii) where the caller has waited for more than 30 minutes before reaching an operator.
From 22 July to 18 August 2021, MOH received a total of 111,062 calls via the COVID-19 General Enquiries hotline. This represents a utilisation rate of 246% of the normal call centre capacity of 45,000 calls per month. On average, the COVID-19 General Enquiries hotline operates one-fourth of the time at peak utilisation. During the same period, the number of unanswered calls is 19,735, of which 11,013 (9.9% of total calls received) were dropped before being connected to an operator. Nine hundred and one callers (1% of answered calls) waited for more than 30 minutes before being connected to an operator.
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