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FURTHER INFORMATION To look at NHS Direct on your TV, you need to be a subscriber to Sky, but the government says it will be soon on cable and Freeview over the course of 2005. To access the service on Sky press the ‘Interactive’ button on your satellite remote control, and scroll down the menu to ‘NHS Direct Interactive’ and press the ‘Select’ button. In 2002 the government’s spending watchdog the National Audit Office carried out an extensive survey of NHS Direct in England and its effectiveness find it at the main A similar study was done by the Commission for Health Improvement and its successor the Healthcare Commission see the findings Remember that the main 24-hour number to call is 0845 4647. |
One of the health service's best regarded features is NHS Direct, offering 24-hour care and support via the telephone, internet and television.
NHS: one click away
It employs less than 1% of the NHS’ nurses but is expected to be
the main contact point for all UK users of the national health service
– and the government has said it expects the number to become as
well known as “999”.
Welcome to the world of NHS Direct, the 24-hour service once knocked by
its critics as being little better than “call centre health care”
but which in the seven years since its creation seems to have proved its
critics wrong.
Indeed NHS Direct is one of the best regarded of all NHS services - external
evaluations by the National Audit Office and Commission for Health Improvement
both spoke very positively about the morale of the staff and the customer's
satisfaction with the service, while UNISON, the UK’s biggest union
and which represents most NHS staff, has held it up as an example of 'public
services at their best'.
NHS Direct was launched in 1998, with full national telephone coverage
being achieved in November 2000. It operates from some 22 regional centres
and employs the equivalent of 1,000 clinical staff.
The service is now available via a 24-hour a day phone service, through
interactive digital TV, and the web site, which offers a range of information
and resources, from how to find your nearest doctor to common ailments
and how to treat them.
The aim of the service is to provide the public with quicker, easier and
faster access to advice and information about health and illness so that
they are better able to care for themselves and their families.
NHS Direct handles more than half a million telephone transactions a month,
with a similar number of queries coming in through its NHS Direct Online
web site, set up in 1999. A computerised medical support system costing
£70m was in place by October 2001 that helps staff offer the best
advice to users, ranging from going to A&E to scheduling a regular
appointment to advice over the phone.
If you are an experienced nurse then NHS Direct would like to hear from
you as it expands to meet this brief. There are opportunities for Nurse
Advisors, but you must have at least four years’ experience.
But nurses aren’t the only NHS Direct staff. Calls are first dealt
with by call handlers who use special decision support software to collect
necessary information and route – ‘triage’ – the
call. There are also health information advisors to provide wider medical
advice and do follow-ups. Staff will call an ambulance if they feel it
necessary on the patient’s behalf.
Those staff are also very used to dealing with people who seek medical
advice when the doctors is shut: over the last Christmas period more than19,000
people visited the NHS Direct website per day and on Boxing Day in 2003
8,500 people called the NHS Direct number, 0845 4647.
Studies suggest the service thus provided is very popular in certain sectors
– young mothers at home is a big category, suggests its Chief Executive
Ed Lester. “But we want to reach out to other groups that we know
we aren’t reaching, especially young people, where we’d like
to give them better sexual health advice, and people from ethnic minorities
and socially disadvantaged groups.”
UNISON says that NHS Direct is a good thing, but that it’s not reached
its potential. “Like all areas of the NHS it needs more capacity,”
says UNISON’s head of nursing Gail Adams. “It’s far
from being the Argos call centre the critics said it would be and has
a very committed workforce that are really making a difference. But it
should be allowed to increase capacity to do even more.”
“We’ve gone put of our way to work and co-operate with the
unions and UNISON especially has provided very solid and sensible support,”
adds Lester.
Where is NHS Direct going?
Certainly, change is in the air. Last year the way NHS Direct was run
changed dramatically as it went from being run by civil servants to being
a special health authority with its own board and staff, with funding
driven from primary care trusts (PCTs), which will commission its services
with help from the next tier up, the other strategic health authorities.
At the same time NHS Direct is being shifted by the government from being
a helpline to becoming a "front end" for much of the NHS: a
key Department of Health strategy document, Developing NHS Direct, says
that by December 2006 it will be the "single point of access"
to out-of-hours care. Indeed, NHS Direct Scotland says 90% of its calls
are already out-of-hours.
Lester is more than happy with the thrust of government direction for
the service. “The more people we can help themselves the better
it is for the NHS overall as resources can be better spent,” says
Lester. “In two to three years we will be the portal to the entire
NHS.”
But it remains to be seen if that NHS Direct will ever really become as
well known as 999.
Story by Gary Flood
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