Health helpline takes record calls

The health service telephone advice line NHS Direct took a record number of calls over the Christmas period with tens of thousands ringing to ask for advice.

Whether Christmas was to blame is unclear but Boxing Day was the busiest day ever for NHS Direct with 24,000 calls from the public, up 33 per cent on last year.

Vomiting topped the league table of illness followed by fever, cough and diarrhoea. NHS Direct met its target of giving telephone advice within half an hour in nearly all cases and the average consultation lasted eight minutes.

The service was set up in 1998 to give people advice on how to treat themselves at home where possible, avoiding the need to call out an emergency GP or wait for hours in a hospital A&E department. Callers to the helpline 0845 4647 are given medical advice by teams of expert nurses. Public awareness of NHS Direct is building rapidly and this is the likely reason for record Christmas demand this year rather than a worsening in the nation's health.

The peak period for calls on Boxing Day was between 9am and 10am and in the late afternoon. The service had laid plans to deal with 500,000 calls over the whole Christmas period, double the figure for last year. On Boxing Day, 30 per cent of callers were given advice on treating themselves rather than going to a hospital or their GP.

NHS Direct's lead nursing officer, Jill Stringer, said: "This year we got it just about right and had enough nurses to respond to almost all the calls within half an hour.

"In the build-up to a bank holiday we do a lot of projections to anticipate call volumes." So far this year the level of flu cases is below the usual winter average while the level of bronchitis is normal.