NHS Direct has reported that it received nearly a quarter of a million phone calls during the ten day Christmas holiday period.
The number of calls was 15% lower than last year - but the decrease was more than made up for by a 30% increase in visitors to the website www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk which received more than 340,000 visits over the same period.
The busiest days for phone calls were Saturdays 23 and 30 December with nearly 35,000 calls each day. Boxing Day is traditionally the busiest day of the holiday period but in a change to the historical trend, the week-ends were busier this year. Throughout the holidays, triage began on 96% of urgent cases within 20 minutes - this is above the 95% target for the telephone service.
There has been some change to the normal Top 10 Patient Illnesses: Coughs and Toothaches have increased while Chest Pain has reduced!
 Abdominal Pain
Dental Tooth Jaw
Pain
Cough
Vomiting
Toothache
Sore Throat
Chest Pain
Diarrhoea
Ear Ache
Fever Toddler (Age 1-4 years)
On the NHS Direct website the top topics for Christmas were
1. Chicken pox
2. Info re walk-in centres
3. Diarrhoea
4. Food poisoning
5. Indigestion
The top topics over New Year were:
1. Chicken Pox
2. Chest infection
3. Back Pain
4. Flu
NHS Direct provides health information and advice 24hours a day, 365 days a year.
NHS Direct handles around 6.5 million telephone calls a year
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