NHS Direct: A source of advice to patients over winter
22 Dec 2010
NHS Direct is encouraging patients to use its newly developed suite of online health and symptom checkers to help them get prompt advice through this busy winter period.
Patients who use the online health and symptom checkers, and are assessed as needing further advice, can ‘click’ to receive a call-back from an NHS Direct nurse advisor.
NHS Direct’s health information and advice telephone service is experiencing extremely high demand, as a result of the severe weather. Last weekend the service received 50 per cent more calls than forecast.
NHS Direct has developed a suite of online health and symptom checkers, available at www.nhs.uk/nhsdirect covering a whole range of topics including specific symptoms such as colds and flu and diarrhoea and vomiting, or more specialist advice on issues such as mental health. The colds and flu symptom checker is in highest demand and was used almost 59,000 times last week, whilst total uses of all of the symptom checkers was 160,000 times. NHS Direct’s newly launched diarrhoea and vomiting symptom checker is also well used with nearly 20,000 visits since its launch earlier this month.
Dr Brian Gaffney, NHS Direct’s Medical Director, said: “Winter is a really busy time for NHS Direct, and our online symptom checkers provide patients with another way of contacting us, making the service more flexible and easily accessible to more patients. Patients can be assured that they will receive the same quality of advice that they have come to expect from the telephone service when they access our services online.”
NHS Direct’s health and symptom checkers can provide self-care advice so that patients can treat their symptoms at home, or if necessary direct them to another health service. For those people who need further advice, they can click to get a call-back from an NHS Direct nurse advisor. The online symptom checkers have been developed in line with the same protocols used by NHS Direct’s telephone advisors so patients get the same advice whether they use the phone or the web.
NHS Direct’s telephone health information and advice line is still available. People who would prefer to speak to someone, have not got internet access or think a further discussion about their symptoms is needed can still call NHS Direct on 0845 4647 anytime day or night. At busy times patients with less urgent symptoms may have to wait for a call-back from a nurse advisor.
Symptom checkers
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