PREHOSPITAL MEDICINE Do callers to NHS Direct follow the advice to attend an accident and emergency department?

Objectives: To provide an objective assessment on callers ’ compliance with NHS Direct advice to attend an accident and emergency (A&E) department. Methods: A representative three week period in May 2000 was investigated. During this period there were no health scares, major health campaigns, or bank holidays that may have affected the call rate. NHS Direct callers who were advised to attend A&E were identified. Data from the four A&E depart-ments for the same three week period and two additional days were searched and matched to NHS Direct data by surname, date of birth, and post code. This process created three groups: (1) callers triaged to A&E who attended, (2) callers triaged to A&E who did not attend, (3) callers with different triage outcome who attended A&E. The age, sex, relationship of caller, time of call, and distance to nearest A&E were compared for groups (1) and (2). Results: Just less than two third of callers triaged to A&E attended with the same presenting complaint. There were no statistically significant differences between group (1) and (2) in terms of age, sex, rela-tionship of caller, time of call, and distance to A&E. A small number of callers (2.4%) were identified as being given other advice and attending A&E for the same presenting complaint. This group took sig-nificantly longer to attend A&E than group (1) (χ2 =139.01, df=7, p<0.001)