NHS Scotland: Healthcare professionals are just a phone call away this Christmas

Hundreds of health professionals are preparing for the busy Christmas period – but how do they cope and how can the public help? The Scotsman’s health correspondent Joseph Anderson investigates.

Hundreds of NHS Scotland professionals are just a phone call away this Christmas, as dedicated staff stationed across the country have lifted the lid on the demands of being on call 24/7 over the festive period.

Staff working on NHS 24, the healthcare phone line accessed by calling 111, spend much of the holidays away from their family.

However, within NHS 24’s busy call centres, staff treat each other as a second family over Christmas, with bosses spending months “planning how we can make this the best experience for our staff”, said Julie Ann Lindsay, a senior nurse.

NHS 24 clinical nurse Julie Ann Lindsay

“If we can give the best experience to our staff, then we're giving the best service to our patients as well,” she said. “We have Christmas trees up, we have festive quizzes, we do lots of charity work too.

“In Dundee, we’re donating to the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals this year, and we've donated to a care home in previous years. It's about us giving back as well as giving to patients that are calling the service.”

Dr Ronald Cook, associate medical director at NHS 24, said while spending time away from family “is part of the job”, there is a definite “Christmas spirit” among staff.

“It can be pretty stressful, and it can be really busy, but there are significant efforts made to promote a sort of esprit de corps,” he said.

NHS 24 clinical nurse Julie Ann Lindsay

“There is a real teamwork atmosphere in our centres over the festive break. We make sure that there's a bit of a festive spirit put in, with food available and Christmas quizzes going on.

“People are working really hard to provide the care people need over Christmas, but we make sure that they feel included in the team and they get a bit of festive spirit, and also making sure everyone gets a bit of time off to also spend with their family.”

The Christmas and New Year period bring an increased demand for NHS Scotland’s out-of-hours services, as GP surgeries close and the usual winter pressures begin to surge.

Lindsay said: “With increased demand, some of that's in relation to having a lot of patients now living with comorbidities, they have lots of underlying health problems. Particularly at this time of year, we see an increase in respiratory presentations, such as coughs, colds, and flu.

People are being encouraged to be prepared for winter ailments and to use NHS 24’s digital tools to help them

“It's about educating patients to look after themselves at home, with good infection control. Because we now receive all calls that may be referred to accident and emergency, if we're going to see more snow and ice, we're going to see an increase in potential injuries from people falling.

“The reasons that people call vary considerably. However, we will see an influx of seasonal illnesses.”

Dr Cook said NHS 24 received three times as many calls over Christmas as usual, with many of the calls coming on the last day of the holidays, when patients who have put off contacting the NHS become too sick to cope.

“Christmas and New Years is one of our busiest periods in the year, particularly when it falls on certain configurations,” he said.

“The four-day holiday makes things very busy because there's no alterations for patients to access their normal health care provision over a more extended block of time. We're forecasting potentially three times as many calls than we'd normally get if you looked at it on a normal working day, so it's a big, big spike in volume and how busy we are.

“That’s why we try to get the message out for people to prepare for winter. You'd be amazed that there's a significant proportion of those calls about medication, that people have run out of just their normal prescription.

“We need people to make sure that they've got a good supply of their regular medications, that they've got a good supply of simple painkillers and cough and cold medications in the house over the winter period.”

Lindsay said the team “can have challenging days”, but added that “as clinicians and nurses, that's what we've been trained to do”.

“Our staff have resilience, teamwork and effort and if someone's not having such a good day that day, then we say ‘come on, let's move forward and work together as a team’,” she said.

Dr Cook said new urgent care pathways had been implemented, to encourage people who were not certain whether they needed to visit an emergency department or A&E to instead call 111 first, where “we can often give them good self care advice” or “arrange for them to have a remote consultation with a senior clinical decision maker”.

Patients can now speak with senior clinicians from the emergency department at home, and have their conditions assessed by video call without having to wait in an A&E waiting room, and “without having to leave the comfort of their own living room”.

“The big message this winter is to please take steps to prepare for winter,” said Dr Cook.

“Make sure that you've got your prescribed medications, make sure you've got a good supply and be aware that your access to your own GP may be altered over a bit of an extended festive period, so make sure that you prepare early with that.

“Also, make sure that you're familiar with resources like NHS Inform and the NHS 24 app, which really has a wealth of advice and resources to guide people with common winter ailments and common conditions which may inconvenience people over winter.

“That would mean that they don't need to call 111 and people can get on with enjoying their time with their family over the Christmas period.”