ENGLAND – The UK government has said it will hand over responsibility of servicing all non-emergency health calls to Domino’s Pizza.
The announcement comes on the back pressure to find £20 billion in savings and the change to front line service would see a saving of £1 billion, plus a free medium pizza for health related calls made on weekdays between noon and 2pm.
After a survey revealed that nearly a quarter of all callers to the NHS ended up self diagnosing themselves with pizza, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the fast food franchise was a perfect fit with NHS care.
“At present, people can be confused about who to contact when having stomach problems or experience dizziness and many end up calling Dominoes anyway as pizza is often the cure.”
Private-Public partnership
The plan – which will see NHS staff transferred to their local Domino’s store for retraining – marks the beginning of the move to combine public health care with private elements “where it makes sense to do so,” and has lead to interest from other private companies such as McDonald’s, interested in handling paediatric care.
The announcement has also received severe criticism from nurses who fear jobs could be lost to local deliverymen as well as voicing concerns that every diagnosis will end in an order for a Full House, garlic bread with BBQ sauce and a Diet Coke.
A Department of Health spokesman denied the move would lower standard of care. She said: ‘This is not purely a cost cutting exercise, but is about bringing patient care and great pizza closer together. It’s in Domino’s interests to keep patients alive.’
Enhanced service
Mr Lansley did admit there would “naturally be growing pains, like people taking up time with emergency calls or those who mistakenly dialed thinking they were calling Pizza Hut.” He denied callers would be short-changed in terms of care, but did admit they may still be short-changed if they paid at their door.
Domino’s will remain free to call and staffed by a team of fully trained ‘call advisers’, on hand to assess callers’ medical and lunch time needs.
Patients would be able to make appointments with a GP or in an emergency, have an ambulance sent “in 30 minutes or less.”
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