The UK’s Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, brazenly ignoring the fact that it was he who started the story that NHS Direct was due to be axed [The Independent] has sent what is known as a ‘robust’ letter to his opposition counterpart, Andy Burnham, in which he says that the only thing that will be going is the NHS Direct 0845 46 47 phone number, to be replaced by the 111 number. Ah, well that’s all right then! Never mind that it will confuse all the UK’s European visitors for whom 112 is their emergency number, equivalent to the UK’s 999 or the US’s 911. Read the robust letter (PDF).
Despite the unanswered doubt raised by a Telecare Aware reader about the appropriateness of NHS Direct and Airedale NHS Trust being on the Buying Solutions Telecare, Telehealth and Telecoaching Framework Agreement owing to their being on both sides of the fence, we are pleased to hear that NHS Direct still has the possibility of being a major player in the telehealth market in the UK for the foreseeable future.
NHS Direct
Lansley seems to have made a complete “pigs ear” of this. A very bad start, given the much, much bigger changes ahead for the NHS.