Bumper Christmas for NHS Direct

NHS Direct has had its busiest ever Christmas, with a record number of people using both the telephone and online health advice service over a three-day period.

While calls to NHS Direct were up by 10% on last year, the number of visits to the NHS Direct Online website leapt by almost a third.  Health enquiries asscociated with over-indulgence featured prominently over the festive period.   

Between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day the 24/7 the NHS Direct telephone advice and information service took 10% more calls than the same period last year, with a total of 73,945 calls answered.

The busiest day was Christmas Eve when a total of 27,946 calls were answered.

A spokesperson for NHS Direct told E-Health Insider the figures were very encouraging. "We have made a concerted effort to make people aware that NHS Direct can help them over this period. We’ve been trying to make people aware of both the website and our guide in Thompson’s local telephone directories."

According to NHS Direct many callers were "coping with the consequences of overindulgence", with common inquiries including abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhoea. Other problems included sore throats, coughs, earache, toothache, fever and chest pain.

By comparison, over the same three-day Christmas period there were 49,301 total visits to the NHS Direct Online website, up 31%  on the same period in 2004. The busiest day on the website was Boxing Day when the website recorded 20,556 visits.

The most popular website topics over the three day period included chickenpox, rashes, colds and flu, diarrhoea and pregnancy.

The spokesperson said that "hot topics" had been set up on the NHS Direct website to deal with the most common enquiries from the public over Christmas. "We’re very pleased to see that people are making use of the service and the website."