Review : Telephone triage: a panacea for child and family health care?

■ Telephone triage offers an exciting, although controversial means of extending the role of children's nurses ■ Convenient, anonymous and immediate access to advice and help could be very attractive to many families ■ Children who do not need face-to-face contact with health professionals can be 'filtered out' of that system ■ Telephone triage should result in more appropriate use of resources ■ Telephone communication skills need to be developed to ensure that the service is efficient and effective ■ Research needs to be undertaken to ensure that newly developing services are appropriately evaluated