History
In 1997, the National Health Service came to a turning point. The government announced the introduction of a new NHS, a plan to modernise, develop and rebuild its services.
As part of the new healthcare system, a 24 hour telephone advice line that was staffed by nurses was planned and approved. NHS Direct was born.
A new approach to healthcare
NHS Direct was created as a symbol of the new NHS, which set out to support the principles that the NHS was originally founded upon; that healthcare should be available for everyone who needs it, whenever they need it.
As the government stated in the NHS White Paper, The New NHS, the main aim of NHS Direct was: ‘to provide people at home with easier and faster advice and information about health, illness, and the NHS, so that they are better able to care for themselves and their families’.
In addition to this, NHS Direct was designed to point people in the right direction for the most appropriate form of treatment. This encourages the best use of NHS services.
Starting out
In order to launch NHS Direct, three sites across the country were chosen to pilot and test the brand new telephone service. The sites selected were:
- Lancashire,
- Northumbria, and
- Milton Keynes
The contact centres were run by staff of the Ambulance Service NHS Trust in each area.
Although the initial stages of NHS Direct were small, the plans were ambitious. The original NHS Direct sites started taking calls from the public in March 1998. Through further pilot projects, the whole country was due to be covered by a healthcare telephone service by 2000.
With the pioneering new service underway, the pilots were a great success. The first three contact centres delivered NHS Direct’s services to over 1 million people, and proved that there was a real need for trustworthy, accessible healthcare advice at home.
Growing success
The Medical Research Centre of the University of Sheffield confirmed the success of the pilots with their independent study of the first wave of telephone pilots.
Researchers found that NHS Direct had dealt well with increasing numbers of calls, while also achieving high rates of caller satisfaction.
Early trends showed that some of the most common calls were for information on out-of-hours healthcare services and from parents of young children.
By April 1999, over 40% of the country was covered by the NHS Direct telephone service through another 13 pilot sites. This percentage had risen to 60% by December 1999.
Finally, NHS Direct was available nationwide from October 2000, and the service was well on its way to becoming the leading healthcare provider that it is today.
A home on the web
As the telephone service was rapidly becoming available in every home in England, NHS Direct was ready to introduce its next phase of round the clock healthcare.
NHS Direct went live with its own website in December 1999. Its aim was to be a source of clinically accurate, up-to-date health information that would work alongside the telephone service. The website would allow people to access clear and straightforward health information anonymously.
In its original form, the NHS Direct website was innovative but basic, and in 2001 it underwent considerable development. A new, improved site was unveiled in November 2001 with many of the now well-established features, such as the health encyclopaedia and the health information enquiry service.
Another leap forward came with the addition of the NHS Direct self-help guide. An interactive tool created to guide users to the best source of treatment based on their symptoms.
More recently, a redevelopment of the website in October 2006 included the Mind and Body magazine, current health news and features, and interactive health tools and quizzes. The update also improved the website’s accessibility, allowing users to alter elements, such as font size, to their own preferences.
Since its creation, the NHS Direct website has attracted more and more users. The number of visits to the website rose from 1.5 million a year in 2000 and 2001, to approximately 18 million in 2009. These days, the NHS Direct website receives over 1.5 million visits every month.
A national institution
By steadily expanding the way it reaches its users, NHS Direct has become a trusted and indispensible part of the NHS.
Since 1998, patients and their families have been better informed about health, encouraged to take more control of their own healthcare, and have more choice over the way they receive it.
Call volumes to the NHS Direct telephone service have increased by an average of 20% every year since its launch. Together with the website, NHS Direct provides a unique focal point for managing public health concerns, and a first contact for patients seeking medical help out of hours.
NHS Direct has succeeded in becoming the largest and most accomplished healthcare provider in our class, anywhere in the world. We remain at the forefront of delivering user-friendly healthcare advice and information.
