Winter health - dial 111
The NHS in Hertfordshire is running a campaign urging parents and carers of primary school-age children to call NHS 111 for urgent medical help or to talk to a pharmacist if their medical concern isn’t urgent.
NHS 111 is the single telephone number to get urgent help from a variety of healthcare services. It’s free to call and is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Based in Welwyn Garden City and run by Herts Urgent Care (HUC), the NHS 111 call centre provides high quality urgent healthcare to nearly three million patients across the East of England.
Many of us get ill over winter, especially with coughs, colds and flu, but there are lots of things you can do to manage your winter illness yourself and help prevent catching it from others.
Use your local pharmacy
Pharmacists are experts in medicines and minor ailments. That means that you can drop in for advice and support on things such as coughs, colds and headaches without an appointment. Many pharmacies are in handy locations and are open evenings and weekends. You can use the NHS services finder to locate your nearest pharmacy.
For more winter-health information from NHS their leaflet for parents/carers is available online here and there is a NHS flyer aimed at parents with young children here.
The NHS Stay Well website also has lots of further information to help you and your family stay well over the winter in cold weather.