The National Health Service telephone helpline NHS Direct had little impact on NHS immediate care services during its first year of operation, but may have reversed the growth in demand for out-of-hours general medical practitioner services.
Research commissioned from Sheffield university by the Department of Health and published in the British Medical Journal for July 15 (p150) found only small and statistically insignificant changes in the workload of accident and emergency departments. However, it found that the trend in demand for GP services was reversed from monthly growth of 2 per cent to a monthly reduction of 0.8 per cent. The analysis was restricted to the three areas of England where NHS Direct was first introduced.
The authors say that the finding is no surprise because 72 per cent of calls to NHS Direct are out-of-ours and most of these would have gone to GPs if NHS Direct had not been available. Less than half of calls to NHS Direct resulted in a recommendation to see a GP.
The NHS Direct telephone helpline was launched in Wales on July 10.