NHS 24's IMMEDIATE PRIORITY
NHS 24 is well aware that its main challenge in the short term is to deliver a safe and reliable service over the next 6 months or so. This will not be easy because very few of the challenges and problems described earlier can be resolved quickly. Over the last 6 months or so NHS 24 has been trying hard to transform some of its practices and procedures but, as indicated in the interim report, it will need the understanding, support and assistance of all 15 Health Boards and its fellow Special Health Board the Scottish Ambulance Service, over the months ahead. What is essential is that NHS 24 provides each and every Health Board with carefully considered estimates for the 2005-06 winter season and specifically for Christmas and New Year holiday periods. Health Boards must have the most accurate range of estimated numbers of calls possible - and last year's Festive Season estimates were quite a bit out. This will inform Health Boards' own planning for out-of-hours primary care and alert them to specific periods when the service provider might struggle to meet demand on its own. Those estimates should reflect normal winter expectations and, separately, should be ready to anticipate a possible flu epidemic.
Last winter NHS 24 and Health Boards had to scramble additional resources - including GPs and nurses - at very short notice to help them out, particularly over the 2 festive season extended holidays. This year they ought to be able proactively to plan and manage that necessary bank of back-up resources.
NHS 24 will also require the support of the public. In its early days NHS 24 obviously had to publicise its presence and it did a lot of good promotion work. But in its enthusiasm and perhaps because the workload was then relatively light, it seems at times to have gone just too far. The "we are just a call away" and "call us any time"-type messages suggested that callers could indeed call - virtually at any time, day or night, and for almost any reason. No-one could begin to blame the general public if they took up that open offer. Unscheduled demand for NHS clinical advice and care during out-of-hours periods has always been available for urgent or emergency cases. When NHS 24 and/or Health Boards, and/or SEHD try to persuade people as much as possible only to ring in those out-of-hours periods if they think they have an immediate need, that is not, by any means, a new message. Rather, it is correcting a somewhat misleading message put out by NHS 24 in earlier years - when circumstances were quite different.