NHS Direct may not have sufficient capacity to offer the levels of out-of-hours care that the government wishes it to, a new study warns.

In 2000, a government review said patients trying to get hold of their GP out of hours would be redirected to NHS Direct for an initial assessment.

But today’s report from the University of Southampton, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), suggests that such an integrated service has “limited efficiencies”.

It finds that 68 per cent of the 31 surgeries or cooperatives offered the redirection service, but only at nine of them were patients automatically diverted to NHS Direct.

Most people who called the service got through at the second attempt, but had to wait to have their call returned by a nurse.

Lead researcher Dr Val Lattimer said: “These results suggest that there are limited efficiencies to be gained from routing all incoming calls through NHS Direct if the workload of general practice providers is insufficiently reduced.”