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Axe to fall on NHS helpine
Medical helpline NHS Direct is to be scrapped and replaced with a scheme being trialled in the North East.
Health chiefs were shocked yesterday when the Department of Health said the new non-emergency 111 number, which was launched in County Durham last Monday, would replace the existing service and claim they knew nothing about it.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley made the announcement, apparently in error, during a hospital visit. But the Department of Health yesterday released a statement confirming the news and said many of the services offered by NHS Direct would be "subsumed" by the 111 service.
The switch has been criticised by people who say the pilot has not been tested yet and the cost-saving cuts the new service would bring were being rushed into.
The Royal College of Nursing urged the government not to axe specialist nurses who work for NHS Direct.
Chief executive Dr Peter Carter said: "The evidence suggests the expert advice of nurses has kept 1.5million people out of A and E and saved the NHS 213million a year.
"It would be shortsighted to cut back on the experts who deliver these long-term savings." Former deputy prime minister John Prescot has labelled plans to replace the service as "madness".
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Weather for Sunderland
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Heavy sleet
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light sleet showers
Temperature: -0 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South
