"Welcome to NHS Direct," says a recorded voice. "For quality control purposes all calls are recorded. Please hold, and your call will be answered shortly."

I've dialled 0845 4647 - the number of the new 'health advice over the phone' service that arrived in York and North Yorkshire last week. My mission? To road-test the service and report back.

My call is quickly transferred to an operator, who takes my details. Name, date of birth, address, home and work telephone numbers, name and address of my GP. Do I mind him being informed of my call? No, not at all.

Then I'm transferred to a friendly nurse named Tim Jarvis. How can I help you? he asks.

I keep getting these minor but irritating chest infections, I explain. They recur throughout the summer, when it's hot and humid. My GP says its caused by a virus, it's unpleasant but it's not really serious - and there's nothing that can be done. But if there was any way of reducing the symptoms - it can be quite painful - it would be nice.

Tim is sympathetic. I tell him what my GP's diagnosis was, and he says he'll go away, look it up, and call me back with any suggestions he might have.

Twenty minutes later he calls back. He's consulted a number of medical texts and a computer database, and has a fair bit of information about the condition. He lists the symptoms - mild fever, headache, sore throat, chest pain - and they agree completely with my own. It looks as though your GP's diagnosis is spot on, he says - but it's not really very nice to be told you've got to live with this. It may well be worth going back to him to see if there is anything that could relieve the symptoms. Possibly a pain-killer such as paracetamol or a steam inhalation with some sort of balsam - but check with your GP first.

I'm impressed by his obvious concern, the trouble he took to find out about the condition, and the care he took to try and be helpful without overstepping the bounds. I will follow his advice and go back to my GP for more help.

It seems to me that in my case NHS Direct did everything it set out to do. I received useful, genuine advice from a highly trained nurse who clearly cared, but who himself was unable to make a prescription.

The service is a 24-hour one - when the York call centre is closed between 10.45pm and 7.15 am calls are automatically transferred to Hull - and it means worried parents need never feel alone in the middle of the night again. Help, reassurance and advice is just a phone-call away - and if you really do need to be rushing your child to hospital, the nurses will tell you so.