§ 9. Mr. Tom Levitt (High Peak)What plans he has to extend NHS Direct. [52780]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears)Building on the very successful roll-out of NHS Direct, I expect the service to expand its capacity significantly over the next six years. By 2008, NHS Direct will be able to deal with more than 30 million callers a year. It will, for example, handle all out-of-hours calls to general practitioners and be in a position to deal with up to 1 million lower priority ambulance calls.
§ Mr. LevittI thank my hon. Friend for that reply. I congratulate NHS Direct and its partner BT on having recently answered their 10 millionth call since NHS 20 Direct was set up. I am sure that she agrees that there is still a need to educate some parts of the population about the use of NHS Direct, especially in respect of out-of-hours service replacement. Will the extension of NHS Direct be not only quantitative, as she has described, but qualitative, in terms of bringing new services into the NHS Direct family?
§ Ms BlearsAbsolutely. My hon. Friend is right; NHS Direct can really help to contribute towards the reform agenda. For example, in west Yorkshire, NHS Direct is involved in an innovative scheme for people with long-term lung complaints. They can be monitored at a distance via the telephone and computer software, and when their life signs start to deteriorate an emergency response can be triggered. Similarly, Hope hospital, in my constituency, has an innovative programme for people with diabetes. NHS Direct can offer a contact centre to all patients around the country with diabetes, who can get advice through e-mail, the telephone and interactive online services. NHS Direct is truly the kind of service that we want for the 21st century; it is a very exciting development indeed.