Nurses can safely manage half of out of hours calls in primary care

Increasing demands for out of hours care have put services under strain, yet improving access to health care is important. On p 1054 Lattimer et al report a randomised controlled trial to compare a telephone consultation service run by nurses with the usual system in a general practice cooperative for out of hours primary care. During intervention periods experienced and specially trained nurses managed calls with the help of decision support software and had the options of giving advice, referring to the general practitioner on duty, or referring to the ambulance service. The new service reduced the workload of general practitioners and was at least as safe as the existing service. The authors encourage the integration of existing out of hours services with the new NHS Direct service.


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Relevant Article

Safety and effectiveness of nurse telephone consultation in out of hours primary care: randomised controlled trial
Val Lattimer, Steve George, Felicity Thompson, Eileen Thomas, Mark Mullee, Joanne Turnbull, Helen Smith, Michael Moore, Hugh Bond, and Alan Glasper
BMJ 1998 317: 1054-1059. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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