NHS 24 has suffered a series of high-profile setbacks that have left its new ex-policeman chief, in place since May, with a lot of work to do.

The aim of NHS 24 was as clear as it was ambitious.

Its mission was to help NHS patients access "the right care from the right people at the right time".

But it suffered a series of high-profile setbacks that have left its new ex-policeman chief, in place since May, with a lot of work to do.

The hopes were high. A 24-hour helpline offered people a chance to call qualified nurses any time, any day for confidential advice about health complaints, including whether they needed to go to an accident and emergency department and possible self-treatment options.

The idea was to improve out-of-hours services and reduce the burden on over-stretched GPs and casualty staff.

When it was launched in 2002, three years after the launch of sister service NHS Direct in England, Susan Deacon, then health minister, hailed it as one of the most significant and radical developments in the recent history of the NHS.

Over the next five years it came to be criticised for long waiting times for callers. And there have been tragic high-profile failings, with the deaths of Aberdeen schoolgirl Shomi Miah and Steven Wiseman, from Kincardineshire.

Both were told they probably had flu, but Ms Miah died of meningitis in October 2004 and two months later Mr Wiseman, 30, of Laurencekirk, died of toxic shock.

A joint fatal accident inquiry found that both deaths were probably avoidable. Managers refused to accept that the outcome would have been any different had the patients been seen face to face.

However, in an admission that action was needed in some areas, they say the service has been vastly improved since Ms Miah's death.

The man largely credited with turning the service around is John McGuigan, who joined as chief executive in 2005 when the fatal accident inquiry was looming and the phone line was understaffed and regularly overwhelmed by calls. His actions included introducing satellite call centres to ease staffing problems, better systems for predicting and meeting patient demand, and improving relationships with health boards.

In May this year Sandy Forrest took over the role, and he seems to be tackling remaining problems such as high staff turnover and sickness absence rates.

A former policeman, he is understood to want to lower the qualifications for nurses to combat recruitment problems. He is reported to want to cut the minimum experience that NHS 24 nurses must have from five years to two.

He also has plans for the helpline to answer daytime calls to help reduce the workload on busy family doctors and entice more staff to join NHS 24 by offering a chance to work less antisocial shifts.

Both ideas have sparked further controversy. Critics claim that lowering minimum qualification levels for staff will endanger patients.

GPs are concerned about the ability of NHS 24 staff to take on extra work - when the phoneline began handling calls to doctors outside surgery hours in 2004/05, some patients waited hours for nurses to call back with advice.

Earlier this month Ms Miah's family revealed that they are suing NHS 24 for £200,000. Mr Wiseman's family earlier said it plans to sue the service for £750,000.

Until both cases have been heard, NHS 24 is unlikely to shake off its poor reputation entirely.

But bosses appear determined to repair its image.