Government Announces New Health Services - New Clinical Advice Line And Funding for Plunketline

The Government today announced two important new health initiatives for families and individuals.

First, a large scale pilot project - called Healthline - to test an innovative in-depth quality telephone health and emergency medical advice service for New Zealand.

"This new clinical telephone advice and assessment service to be run 24 hours-a-day 365 days-a-year will be piloted in four parts of the country," Health Minister Wyatt Creech announced today.

Second, the Government will also provide funding to the New Zealand Plunket Society for Plunketline nationwide. The Government has not funded Plunketline in the past.

"Many new parents have found Plunketline valuable in helping them out when they need advice and reassurance. In the areas covered by the clinical health line pilot, the Plunketline will run alongside the pilot.

"The new Healthline is a full telephone triaging service offering in-depth medical advice modelled on the NHS Direct system that has proved successful in Britain.

"We don't have anything like this in New Zealand. Similar services using the latest in modern technology overseas have proved both popular and successful in ensuring people get the right care at the right time by the right people.

"The health line will be trialed for two years in Northland, the North Island's East Coast, the South Island's West Coast and in Canterbury providing around the clock quick access to health advice.

The new health line will provide:

triage advice - assessment of a patient's condition and then recommending them to the most appropriate level of care/treatment
advice on self care, if appropriate
advice on the prevention of illness
information about diseases, pharmaceutical etc
information about available services, entitlements and user charges
Callers will seek health and emergency advice and have their condition assessed by a health professional backed up by computer based information. The health

professional then recommends the most appropriate place for the caller to get care, and the timeframe within which care should be sought.

"The health line will combine sophisticated technology with the clinical expertise of the individual at the end of the phone line to give New Zealanders immediate access to safe confidential health advice," Mr Creech said. "It will have clinical safeguards built into it, and those providing the service will undergo specialised training.

"Overseas experience suggests that telephone lines like this can make expert advice much more accessible for those in remote areas and enables health professional to use their skills and expertise where they can do the most good.

"As technology and treatment options change we have to keep abreast of these changes. Health lines can play a key role in this."

Mr Creech said a reference group of health experts and advisors will be set up to ensure the service works for New Zealand.

The Government wants the service up and running by the start of next year covering about 630,000 New Zealanders.

For further information please contact Anna Hughes (04) 4719 819 or (025) 477 987 or

Frances Ross Ministry of Health (04) 496 2202. Attached background information on success of phone line overseas and how it operates.

BACKGROUND- HEALTH HELP-LINE

lth help-line offers a simple, effective, safe and confidential way for New Zealanders to gain access to expert health advice. It couples sophisticated computer technology with the knowledge and skills of experienced health professionals to guide people to the most appropriate form of care.
The system is aimed at people who don't feel well. It will be accessed by calling an easy to remember phone number, available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Callers will be put through to a fully-trained health professional who will ask them a series of simple questions designed to identify the likely nature of their problem. Depending on the answers they give, they will then be advised on what they should do next. Recommendations might include:-
self-care' (ie taking a simple pain-killer, having a good night's sleep etc);
arranging to visit the GP within the next 24 - 48 hours;
going immediately to an after-hours clinic or an hospital A&E department; or
in extreme cases, calling an ambulance.
The health professionals who answer calls will be specially trained and will undergo routine performance reviews to ensure the quality of their work. They will use state-of-the-art computer technology to help decide on the appropriate course of action.
The computer programs used to support the health-line service pose a series of easy to answer questions which the health professional asks in sequence; with the answer to one question deciding what will be asked next. In this way, the most serious conditions are ruled out first and, when the process reaches a condition that can't be ruled out, a course of action is recommended that is appropriate to that particular condition. This means that callers are consistently advised to follow whatever course of action is appropriate to the worst possible condition they might have; a very conservative approach.
The health-line concept is based on the very successful 'NHS Direct' service that was launched on a pilot basis in England on 23 March 1997. The original pilots have been extended rapidly. 40% of the population now has access to 'NHS Direct'; and it is intended to cover the whole of England by the end of the year 2000.
Early data from the English pilots showed that:-

arrond 80 per cent of callers were advised to act differently from their pre-call intention and were guided to more appropriate levels of care;
approximately 30 per cent of callers were advised to seek less intensive care than they originally intended;
approximately 25 per cent of callers were advised to seek more intensive care than they intended;
about 2% of callers were transferred to the 999 service despite their having not originally intended calling an ambulance; and
31 per cent of callers were advised on how they could look after themselves at home compared just 21 per cent who intended either to care for themselves at home or just to wait and see what happened before they called NHS Direct.