NHS Direct (Hansard, 7 October 2003)

§ Ms Rosie Winterton:

NHS Direct has developed since March 2000 to become the world's largest e-health service, supporting over a million patients every month 72W through its telephone advice and information service and associated website. In this time, NHS Direct has symbolised the changing relationship between the national health service and patients, supporting patients to become more empowered, better informed and more able to exercise choices over their own health and health care.

NHS Direct has been available to callers throughout England since the end of October 2000. Call volumes have grown by 49 per cent. since March 2000. Independent evaluation highlights a service that is safe, popular and increases access to advice and information without increasing demands on other parts of the NHS. Caller satisfaction rates have continued at over 95 per cent. and 45 per cent. of calls to the service are completed without referral to another service. The roll-out of NHS Direct was commended in a report by the National Audit Office, published in January 2002, which estimated that the service covered 50 per cent. of its running costs by reducing demands on other services in the NHS.

In November 2001, NHS Direct Online was re-launched to include an interactive inquiry service, which is able to provide patients with detailed information about topics not covered on the website. NHS Direct Online receives half a million on-line transactions every month. NHS Direct Online has been awarded one of the first ever eEurope awards for eHealth by the European Commission. 200 applications were received from 22 countries. At a conference and award ceremony in Brussels in May this year, attended by European Commissioners and 33 Ministers from across the member states, Bob Gann, Director of NHS Direct Online, received the award for "Empowering Citizens in Management of Health and Wellbeing". The panel judged entries against criteria including economic benefit, accessibility, quality assurance, technical standards and European applicability.

NHS Direct achieved the Prime Minister's pledge that, by the end of September 2001, patients who wished to would be able to obtain advice on dental issues and details of NHS dentists simply by phoning NHS Direct.

NHS Direct introduced a dedicated textphone service in November 2001.The service connects callers to NHS Direct nurses, who have had specialist training to help them meet the needs of textphone users.

Since March 2002, access to out-of-hours care through NHS Direct has been available to 10 million patients. By December 2004, technical and operational links will be in place to allow NHS Direct to transfer calls to any out-of-hours provider in the country. Full clinical integration of services will follow as soon as possible thereafter.

The first version of the NHS Direct performance framework was launched in March 2002. The framework is based on the principle of continuous quality improvement and outlines responsibilities and tools for service delivery and the monitoring of performance and improvement at all levels of the organisation—from the individual to the national service. The framework also outlines a set of key performance targets for NHS Direct, areas for the development of clinical indicators and areas for the 73W development of internal management measures. NHS Direct has embarked on a major programme for improving its productivity. This delivered a 15 per cent. increase in call volumes in 2002–03, without any increase in staff numbers.

NHS Direct aims to support the NHS in many areas, including contributing to a responsible and coherent response to public health. NHS Direct has worked with the Department and other stakeholders to provide a public helpline in the event of health alerts. These have ranged from local incidents, for example, chemical spills, to handling calls during a multi-regional hepatitis C look-back exercise, as well as the Alder Hey independent inquiry. Since March 2000, it has handled a total of 631 health alerts.

Since April 2002, NHS Direct has been able to directly refer patients to pharmacists, where appropriate, for advice about medication or minor ailments or injuries. This has helped many patients receive a quicker and more appropriate response to their problems. It also makes better use of the skills of pharmacists and helps relieve some pressure on general practitioners.

The strategy document for developing NHS Direct, published in April 2003, sets out the continued commitment to this popular and innovative service. The impact of new financial investment will further support plans to use technology and new ways of working to boost productivity and increase capacity. In total, NHS Direct will aim to expand its call taking capacity three fold in the next three years, while at the same time, developing the various channels through which patients can access the service.