THE news that one of the pioneers behind the creation of the NHS 24 helpline now wants it dismantled is at first impression striking.
But let's probe deeper, shall we? Everyone at the sharp end of health provision is in a fankle just now.
GPs never wanted to carry on with providing a full out of hours service. Accident and Emergency doctors feel increasingly swamped. Actual demand is increasing exponentially as ever older patients are admitted. Everyone wants to prevent a climate where demand is total but everyone feels they have a right to go to A&E with the slightest sprain or sniffle.
NHS 24 was meant to be a useful tool to get us through this minefield, but like every part of the healthcare system it carried a high risk. It takes just one bad decision by a GP surgery, or an A&E nurse, or a nurse fielding a call from NHS 24 and the media will be all over it.
It is the constant unfairness. Any of us who work in a shop or an office, or indeed a newspaper, can make a mistake and no-one gets killed. Not so in the NHS. And there is the screaming sense of entitlement. We want treated, we want teated now, we want the best possible treatment.
The NHS has always rationed its provision, as the sole survival mechanism to continue functioning. Most of us accept that. Most of us accept that if we do have to go to A&E it might take a while, especially on a Friday night.
So what is Dr Vijay Sonthalia now saying? One of the advisory committee members who recommended the creation of the NHS 24 helpline, he is now arguing it should be dismantled.
His rationale is that the nurses at the helpline are too cautious and need better triage training on the job alongside doctors. This is pie in the sky, and worse, disingenuous.
You can argue that the helpline nurses need better training and that this might be done by rotation to work alongside doctors. You can argue that NHS 24 refers on too many cases to doctors. But the former would take more numbers of doctors and nurses across the NHS, and the latter would leave NHS 24 nurses open to criticism when they got calls wrong.
We are moving into a less deferential culture, and people turn to regulators, lawyers or the media to highlight concerns. But this is not the time to lose our nerve on the inherent value of NHS 24.
NHS 24, having been invented, cannot be abolished. It can be improved, better trained nurses can be made more confident in their decision-making, and in that way it might relieve even more of the burden from hospitals and GPs.
But if we abolished it tomorrow the crisis in our Accident and Emergency units would worsen at a stroke and the out of hours problems of our GP services would be further exposed. Improving NHS 24, as highlighted by medical director Dr George Crooks, should be a priority. Abolishing it is, frankly, an absurdity.
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