When I read this article, there was a tweet from Andy Burnham on the Twitter link to the right of the article, saying: “NHS Direct: a single, trusted #NHS service broken up into 46 cut-price contracts. Sign of what’s coming to rest of #NHS under @David_Cameron.” That’s about the size of this government’s health policy. The advice in the last paragraph of the piece is useful also.
The announcement today that NHS Direct is to pull out of the NHS 111 services should be no surprise to anybody.
As readers of this blog will know the chief executive already had deep misgivings as http://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/exclusive-byebye-nhs-direct-leaked-chiefs-e-mail/ revealed.
It was already clear that private profit making providers were taking over many services – putting in cheapskate staff in call centres who are probably Googling your symptoms on the net as you speak. And a lot of them don’t have qualified medical staff on board on a 24 hour basis. This is certain if you want to cut costs from £20 to £9 a call and make a profit on each call for their directors.
No wonder NHS Direct couldn’t compete and accident and emergency services are flooded with calls.
The statement says: NHS Direct is seeking to withdraw from the NHS 111 contracts it entered into as these have proved…
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Mike Sivier's blog 
Please remember this only refers to England. NHS24 still operates in Scotland and there are no indications it will close down as NHS Direct is currently doing in England. The NHS in England is slowly but surely being privatised by this Coalition Government. In Scotland we have a devolved administration which takes care of our healthy needs very well. It has its problems too due to the cut backs in terms of the block grant we receive courtesy of Westminster. Once the Referendum on Scottish Independence takes place on 18 September 2014 we will have control of all of our nation’s needs. Trident will certainly go and this will release £108 billion to be spent in more appropriate ways.
That depends on whether the referendum goes the way the SNP wants, of course.
I should also add that Wales also has a devolved health service which suffers from the same problems as Scotland (lack of funds from Westminster), and so, I suspect, does Northern Ireland.