An exercise in communication:-analysis of calls to a meningococcal disease hotline.

We describe our experience with a hotline which was set up to deal with enquiries relating to a secondary school mass vaccination campaign against meningococcal disease. Three thousand, three hundred calls were received over 6 days, mostly from the general public but also from contacts of the school and health practitioners. The hotline served as an important means of providing consistent advice and reassurance to the public and reduced the burden of calls to hospitals and public health units.