Richard Exell
Last night’s rumours that NHS Direct is to be abolished have been confirmed by the government. The service is to be replaced within 3 years by a national phone service (using the non emergency 1-1-1 number) based on the pilot project in the North East. Two-fifths of NHS Direct staff are trained nurses but the 111 line will be staffed by “call advisers” who have only had to take a 60-hour course. In response, John Prescott has set up a “Save NHS Direct” campaign.
Comment made by Janete on Aug 30th 2010 at 2:05 pm:
If we needed evidence that this government is not at all interested in evidence based policy, this is it. In five days we have gone from the announcement of a trial reported as ‘The (111) government service will not initially replace NHS Direct, but may do so in the longer term if successful’ (BBC News 23/8/10) to the announcement of the abolition of NHS Direct.
The media has to be more honest. It should have been reported as a straightforward cost cutting measure, that the government is not interested in the consequences, and that they didn’t think we had a right to know about it before the election. After all, we might have thought ‘call me Dave’ was still in the nasty party.