During December 2009 and January 2010, NHS Direct ran a pilot scheme to test temporary home-working for our Nurse Advisors. We wanted to see how feasible it would be to quickly and safely mobilise staff to work from home in the event of an emergency.
The trial, which enabled Nurse Advisors to complete additional hours from home, was particularly beneficial during the Christmas and New Year period when we experienced exceptionally high demand for our services. Little did we know when we started the pilot, that England was about to see some of the worst winter weather in decades. This meant that some Nurse Advisors were able to continue working when travel to their contact centre base would have been extremely difficult.
The pilot scheme built on previous experience gained when trialling permanent home-working with 18 Nurse Advisors in 2008. This involved carrying out a full Health and Safety Assessment at the Nurse Advisors’ homes, equipping them with a telephone and desktop PC linked to their contact centre base to facilitate home-working on a long-term basis.
To test temporary home-working in the event of an emergency, staff were provided with specialised laptops, giving them full access to the NHS Clinical Assessment System (NHS CAS) and to all NHS Direct’s policies and procedures. Nurse Advisors carried out a self assessment of Information Governance and Health and Safety requirements. For the purposes of the trial, only low-priority symptomatic calls were handled by the home-workers. Those taking part were able to call back patients waiting for advice in the same they would have done if they had been based in the call centre.
Over a three week period, from 22 December 2009 to 12 January 2010, an additional 7,500 calls were handled by Nurse Advisors taking part in the home-working pilot. Evaluation shows that clinical sorting of those calls was on a par with those handled in the call centres.
We are now studying the results of the trial, including valuable feedback from the staff who took part, with a view to carrying out home-working on a temporary basis in future should the need arise.
