NHS Direct
- Correspondence to:
Dr A Lee
NHS Direct National Clinical Team, 449–451 Garstang Road, Broughton, Preston, PR3 5LN, UK; Samantha.Lawleylancashire.nhsdirect.nhs.uk
Commentary on the review by McLellan
As recognised by the National Audit Office, in just five years, NHS Direct has established an impressive track record for customer satisfaction and patient safety, empowering patients to make better informed choices about their own healthcare. It has also clearly identified its potential to contribute to wider developments in the NHS. Building on this success the government is investing in NHS Direct to meet the anticipated growth in demand for its core service and to enable the service to play its part in the modernisation of out-of-hours services.1
In this issue, McLellan highlights appropriately the multi-channel aspect of provision via telephone, digital television, internet, and information kiosk.2 He also rightly identifies some of the challenges facing the service. The move to a single national provider from the current association of 22 separately hosted sites will play a significant role in meeting these challenges; there have already been several key developments in the service made possible specifically by this direction of development, as set out in Developing NHS Direct.1 …
