NHS Direct in Wales, Quarter Ending March 2006

NHS Direct Wales is a 24-hour help line staffed by nurses offering confidential advice about health, illness and the NHS. NHS Direct continue to expand the range of services offered in addition to the main health helpline (0845 46 47), which now include GP out of hours services for 3 Local Health Boards, triage calls transferred from A&E departments, a dental helpline and calls relating to Health Challenge Wales.

Since the last update in December 2005, the data provided are based on calls that reach the ‘Application’ stage, i.e. it no longer includes abandoned or repeat calls to the service. All historic data has therefore been re-analysed on this new basis.

Summary

• 99,500 calls were made to NHS Direct in Wales during the three-month period January 2006 to March 2006. This is a 5 per cent rise since the previous quarter. A year-on-year comparison however, shows an 11 per cent fall on the January to March quarter in 2004-05.
• During the 12-month period to March 2006, 378,000 calls were made to the service; a fall of 3 per cent compared with the previous 12-month period.
• During the three-month period to March 2006, NHS Direct Wales received 2,500 calls from callers expressing a preference for the call to be taken in Welsh. This is an increase of 99 per cent on the same quarter in 2004-05 and accounted for approximately 3 per cent of all calls taken.
• More than 72,400 calls were made to the 0845 service and 27,000 calls to other NHS Direct in Wales services, mostly accounted for by GP Out of Hours services.

Further information can be found at the StatsWales website.

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 3598
E-mail: stats.healthinfo@wales.gsi.gov.uk