NHS Direct

When the Government announced its plan to set up NHS Direct, it was presented as an alternative service for advice out of hours, or for people not needing medical attention, such as women having normal pregnancies. The opposition from within the medical profession could be presented as conservative resistance to the removal of restrictive practices.

Just over a year later, NHS Direct is being turned into a gate-keeper that must be passed before getting a GP appointment. NHS Direct is being turned from an additional service to a restriction of service which arguably may breach one of the founding principles of the NHS.

Was this in the Department of Health's policy for NHS Direct all along? If not, it is developing very quickly before most people have had any dealings with it. But if it always was policy to make NHS Direct the gatekeeper and this was concealed from public debate when the service was launched, the Government treated Parliament and people with contempt, and conservative elements in the medical profession seem in retrospect to have been far-sighted.