Over the last 10 years, NHS Direct and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) have developed a unique national syndromic surveillance system. Today, the system is used to assist health services with their day-to-day planning by monitoring seasonal illnesses, and provides support both locally and nationally when there is a health scare or local incident, such as flooding or flu.
NHS Direct provides the HPA with daily information about the main symptoms that patients call about, which HPA use to track seasonal illnesses such as flu and norovirus against a pre-determined base line. In the case of norovirus, if call volumes for vomiting exceed four per cent of the overall call volume two weeks in a row, this triggers a four-week warning of increased national activity, which is very important for PCT and acute trust planning.
When dealing with the more unpredictable health scares or incidents, surveillance can provide important insights about the impact on the local or national population by monitoring increased activity around particular symptoms. This can often be used to reassure the public and avoid widespread panic.
At the initial stages of the swine flu pandemic, surveillance of NHS Direct’s flu-related calls (which was done alongside GP monitoring) provided a clear and accurate real-time picture of the situation. This information influenced the national response and also quickly identified ‘hot spots’, helping with the local management of flu.
Moving forward, NHS Direct and the HPA are looking at how syndromic surveillance could be used to assist London’s health response to the Olympics in 2012.
For more information about our syndromic surveillance work, please contact your Regional Director.
