NHS.Patient

Following the consultation that finished last year the government has moved to ban use of expensive telephone numbers by NHS GPs. Contract changes came into effect on 1 April 2010, giving them 12 months in which to change their arrangements. The situation is far from "done and dusted" and there are plenty of complications. There is lots more info on my blog - http://nhspatient.blogspot.com/. Please make contact for a full briefing on the situation and any help needed to deal with the particular local issues.

Nero Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The BBC did a report on this. I think it was on > the Today programme before Christmas. It might be > worth a search if you are interested. The doctors > said they did not make money from the service. Dr Richard Vautrey does acknowledge that the premium rates paid by patients are used to subsidise the cost. The website referred to below includes extensive catalogues of links to media coverage of the issue in general and the current consultation. The Today piece is here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7785000/7785011.stm.

I, and others who have been campaigning on this issue, believe that the DH consultation is to be taken seriously. Please respond if you feel strongly on this matter. For a more public show of support there is an e-petition to the Prime Minister to be signed, at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Healthtelephone/. The contract signed with the telephone company (Opal Telecom, part of the Carphone Warehouse Group) is an issue, but one that can be dealt with. The PCT will indicate that the practice is not directly in breach of its NHS contract and so there is nothing that it can do. The Department of Health messed up on this in 2005 when it banned use of 0870 numbers by GPs, but said that 0844 was OK. It has since been trying to back away from this error. This is partially acknowledged in the consultation text. There should be hard copies of the consultation document available at every GP surgery in England. More copies can be requested - contact details for the team are given in the document, which is available to download at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_091879. Please check out the website given below for more info, or contact me if I can help.