By Polly Raymond, 10 February 2000 12:31
NEWS Damning reports that NHS Direct staff were forced to mimic answering machines to cope with the Christmas flu epidemic, are being played down today by the Department of Health.
A spokesman for the NHS service which provides medical advice over the phone, confirmed that a "mechanical equipment failure" meant the normal recorded messaging service was replaced by call handlers with scripts.
"It's a moot point that staff pretended to be answer machines - they were given a script because we didn't want them to enter into a conversation about medical matters," he said.
The NHS Direct service has been hit by other problems over its short life span, including criticisms that nurses operating the call service had been poached from hospitals already struggling with staff shortages. The spokesman said all these teething problems will be overcome soon.
For information about the original launch, see 'NHS Direct puts health advice online'
(http://www.silicon.com/a34497 ).
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