Health News - MP Frank Dobson and Alastair Campbell condemn Tory plans to scrap NHS Direct

Published: 9 September, 2010
by TOM FOOT

FORMER New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson have condemned Tory plans to scrap NHS Direct.

The free over-the-phone medical advice service will be replaced by a cheaper-to-run call centre under proposals announced by Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

NHS Direct employs around 3,000 nurses and health professionals with at least three years’ training.

The receptionists manning the replacement 1-1-1 phone line have been trained for just 60 hours.

Mr Dobson, who launched NHS Direct as Labour health secretary in 1998, said dropping a successful service was “crackers”.

“It is something that has never been available in this country – and never been available anywhere else in the world,” he said. “It’s been an overwhelming success. “Satisfaction levels were always above 95 per cent.

It is a myth that it was supposed to reduce demand on GPs.

It was always meant as an additional service, sometimes directing people to GPs.”

He added: “There is one oddity. I assumed Tony Blair would want to be involved in the launch. He didn’t. I’m told because he thought it wouldn’t work.”

In his blog, Mr Blair’s former communications director Mr Campbell, who lives in Gospel Oak, said: “Scrapping it as part of the deficit reduction plan – the unspoken but probably main reason – becomes less credible when you consider that last year it was reckoned to save the NHS substantially more than it cost, by alleviating pressure on other parts of the service – notably A&E and GPs’ surgeries. This decision appears to have been announced with very little forethought at all.”

Around 14,000 people use NHS Direct for medical advice each day – including many people with mental health problems – with the service costing £123million a year to run.

In a statement, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “It is essential that we improve access to, and understanding about, urgent care services. At present, too many people are confused about who to contact and how to do so.”