Sometimes people need to stop and think before they complain about changes. The current government is phasing out the old NHS Direct. This was a local rate telephone number that gave access to a nurse 24 hours a day. Of course, This being the UK it was free to anyone that could use a telephone. It was a keynote of the previous Labour government. Personally I admired the idea but service was awful and next to useless. Much better was the advent of the drop in centres. The current government is scrapping the NHS Direct and replacing it with the new 111 service. It is the same nurse led NHS Direct but it has been integrated with the out of hours emergency GP service and the the drop in centres. (GP in the UK is your family doctor) 1 persons testimony is not a guide as such, however 3 times I called NHS Direct and 1 nurse was rude and unhelpful and all three just told me to call my GP!!! 1 call to 111 and the nurse stated that I needed an urgent medical appointment there and then and arranged a GP to call me. He was able to diagnose me over the telephone and thus we saved time and money for the NHS. Just as important I had been diagnosed and was able to get back to bed with an hour of calling 111. Change can be a good thing. There is another point - - the Labour Party introduced something that was good in principle but did not work properly in practice. The Conservative Party kept the good bits and tweeked it enough to make it brilliant. It saves money for the government and time for the users. Idealism and party politics can get in the way of health care!! --G
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 18:30:24 +0000
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