Shomi Miah's parents claim they had waited 11 hours for treatment

The move follows the death of 17-year-old Shomi Miah, of Aberdeen, which her family blame on the telephone service.

Her parents claim they had to wait 11 hours for their daughter to be treated for meningitis through the helpline.

NHS 24 said it could not comment on individual cases but insisted the nurses who staff the helpline are among the best in their field.

The Miah family have been joined by 14 other families who say these mistakes are costing lives and plan to present a dossier to NHS 24 chiefs to support their claims.

Shomi was rushed to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary after showing symptoms of meningitis at the end of October but died at the hospital.

Gathering support

Her brother Kalis said: "We're trying to gather support to try and do something about the delays in the services of the NHS and try and organise something so no other families suffer in the way we or the other families have been suffering.

"It's so limited what we can do. The NHS is a big organisation. You really can't do much with them so you have to have a big group to do something."

NHS 24 began in the Grampian region in May 2002 and has since been gradually rolled out to give nationwide access.

We're very keen to establish which parts of the service that the families are unhappy with Dr Brian Robson NHS 24

The demand is estimated at 150,000 calls per month with approximately 1.6 million calls annually.

NHS medical director Dr Brian Robson said: "We're very keen to establish which parts of the service the families are unhappy with.

"Was it NHS 24 on the telephone, was it the face-to-face care provided by the doctors or the ambulance service, or accident and emergency?

"It's very important that we look across all of those different parts of the out-of-hours service."

NHS 24 said 60% of calls were referred to doctors for face-to-face examinations.