I am not commenting on the following, just bringing it GP-UK subscribers
attention.
Health phonelines can halve doctors' workload
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Nurse-run telephone counselling lines can halve the workload on GPs, a
study has found.
The three-year study by the University of Southampton, backed by the
Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and British Telecom, found that nurse-run
phone lines were at least as safe and effective as a visit to a GP out-
of-hours service.
The first major study of phone counselling, it will give a boost to
government plans to extend its NHS Direct counselling line across
England by the year 2000.
The researchers compared a nursing-led phone line and an out-of-hours
service run by GPs in Wiltshire.
The two services covered the same population and operated on different,
but comparable evenings and weekends.
Nurses only passed on calls to GPs where they deemed it necessary.
Each service took around 7,000 calls.
End partial quote.
For rest of article see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_193000/193641.stm
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