Patients urged to try other helplines
Thursday 23rd December 2010, 11:29AM GMT.
Shropshire health chiefs today urged residents to carry on calling NHS Direct despite fears the service across the country was reaching “breaking point” with calls nationally rocketing by 50 per cent.
But Adrian Osbourne, spokesman for the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust, said that if county residents were having trouble getting through to NHS Direct they should try calling other sources including health websites, GPs and pharmacies.
NHS Direct is under huge pressure as flu infection rates more than doubled in the last week.
Patients were having to wait two days to speak to a nurse with as many as 46,000 people calling the helpline last weekend at a rate of almost 960 an hour.
Mr Osbourne said: “NHS Direct has a website which is full of useful information on how to keep warm and also gives useful advice on keeping healthy during the winter.”
He added: “Services in Shropshire are very busy and at our two hospitals staff have once again been absolutely incredible.
“You must remember the staff themselves have been affected by the icy and snowy conditions yet they have come to work and worked extremely hard to care for patients.”
The Essential Guide to Keep Well this Winter is available from doctors’ surgeries, libraries, hospitals and through Shropdoc and the ambulance service.
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Or you could try phoning your local surgery.
I held off phoning mine on the assumption that mine (in South Telford) would be chocka but the nurse booked me in so quickly that I hardly had time to get there. And when I arrived, I felt quite lonely as there was no-one else there in the waiting room.
Never seen it so quiet.
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To slow things down do the same as computer help lines. Charge 50p per minute. That would stop the time wasters, and those who really need help would get it,
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So you want to “tax” the sick then
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