NHS 24 calls up 60% in first wave of swine flu epidemic

Published on Wednesday 26 August 2009 22:10

CALLS to NHS 24 during the peak of the initial wave of the swine flu epidemic increased by 60 per cent, it was revealed yesterday.

The steep rise in calls emerged during the annual review of the service chaired by health secretary Nicola Sturgeon at Beardmore Hotel and Conference Centre, Clydebank.

Dr George Crooks, medical director of NHS 24 in Scotland, said: "From April through to early summer, we saw an increase in calls to NHS 24 on an order of magnitude of 25 to 30 per cent from predicted volumes, rising at times to 60 per cent increase in call volume directly related and indirectly related to the H1N1 influenza pandemic."

He said NHS 24 had been particularly effective in helping the NHS in the west and south-west to cope with the initial wave of illness. NHS 24 Scotland chief executive John Turner admitted the situation had been challenging, but said he felt the service had so far been up to the task.

"The pandemic situation has been a very significant challenge for NHS 24, in terms of managing this in partnership with others, we have played not just an important role, but played it very well," he said.

The NHS 24 board said that to bolster the service, backroom members of staff had volunteered to receive training and were ready to man the phones if needed. It insisted, however, that the necessary safeguards and supervision were in place to ensure that the best possible clinical advice was given out.

Ms Sturgeon said the service was vital in the government's swine flu strategy. "NHS 24 has a critical role to play almost protecting the rest of the primary care," she said.

"We continue to see flu spreading, but because of the Flu Response Centre that NHS 24 has set up, GPs don't get swamped with patients that don't need that kind of clinical intervention; they just need advice about what to do."

Ms Sturgeon said that at the moment, the number of calls NHS 24 received had declined to broadly seasonal averages, but the Scottish Government was working on the basis that it would see flu levels rise again in autumn.

The service would continue to have contingency plans in place to deal with swine flu while the pandemic continued to pose a threat, she said.

The review also showed that NHS 24 had received almost 1.5 million calls over the past 12 months, while its website had close to a million hits.

However, Ms Sturgeon said that the service would continue to be an out-of-hours service rather than a replacement for face-to-face appointments with GPs.

"NHS 24's core responsibility is in the out-of-hours period to allow patients a source of advice and onward referral to a GP or the ambulance service it needed," she said.

"What we heard this afternoon is evidence that it is improving in its performance in that responsibility, but over and above that it's increasingly providing services that aren't about by-passing GPs or any other part of the NHS, it's about adding value, not replacing things that are already there".