GPC says practices must be exempt from 084 ban

David Hickson - 24 February 2009

There is no problem with GPs serving out their contracts with Carphone Warehouse under a ban on revenue sharing 084 numbers.

They can do so using 034 numbers, which are charged at no more than the cost of calling a normal 01 or 02 number. It is quite normal for a contract for telephone service to permit a change of number such as this. This is exactly what NHS Direct has prepared to do with BT. No need to break contracts, no need for exemption! No more funding of NHS services at the expense of patients. The idea that telephone companies should pay for GP's telephone systems is frankly laughable.

rosielee - 24 February 2009

I also believe that the DoH should also look at charges levied at patients for using phones in hospitals, especially in PFI builds.

Patient line charges are excessive, and should also be brought into line. Call charges to patients should not be used as a way of raising revenue, which then goes to pay off private companies.

Andrew Holford - 24 February 2009

This change from 084 numbering is not without precedent. In April 2005 the then Health Minister, John Hutton, forced a change from the previously authorised 0870 to other cheaper numbers, including the current 0844. At that time the Government paid out money to each GP practice affected by this change of rules. I fear on this occasion we will not hear the opening of Government cash tills for the problem is now one of scale; in 2005 there were only 290 affected GP practices and today 0844 is far more widespread.

0844 numbers for GP's are invariably linked to new switchboards. Suppliers receive a revenue share of the call costs and about 2ppm ends up benefiting the GP practice. Remove this revenue share and practice managers will have a problem.

So what are the options? 01 or 02 prefix numbers generate no revenue, nor do they have the virtual switchboard features of 08 ranges \(used for caller queuing and re-direction to OoH providers). 03 including 0344/0345 retain these switchboard features yet surgeries would face an additional cost of around 2ppm to receive patient calls; all because of a change in government policy. Practice Manager's will NOT be happy and will urgently need to review phone supplier contracts to see what liabilities, if any, this change of policy can remove them from.

There remain just two sensible options, a return to old-fashioned local numbering or a cheap change to the little known alternative of 03 numbers that link to new yet very inexpensive digital \(IP) surgery phones \(such as MEDICall from xtraphone.us) This 03 route allows for many beneficial 08 services to be retained yet at the same time callers pay the same as if they dialled a normal local number. With even BT looking, within 5 years, to provide IP telephony across the UK perhaps this 03 route is the future proofed option of choice?

Above all it is the Practice Managers who are once again in the firing line. Probably because they simply believed the sharp-suited telecoms salesman who hid the fact that 084 callers would be subsidising their new phone systems or they decided in 2005 that the Government could not make the same mistake twice and that 0844 was safe and acceptable to all.