I live abroad & have elderly parents in the uk who are not in good health.

I have a number for their GP's surgery but it is an 0844 number & I cannot use it from abroad for some reason, does anyone know what I can do as there is no alternative number?

E mailing is not an option

Jenpet

Well, firstly 0844 numbers are not a geographic number - they are a rip off number that some NHS numbers have brought in. You will not be able to ring them from anywhere outside of the UK. The only hope you have is to contact the surgery and ask for their international number (which will be 0870, and even more expensive to call!)

I would also encourage you to write to the local MP for the area which the surgery is in and explain to them about the issues you are having calling the surgery. The surgeries need to be informed that it is unacceptable to use these numbers, and that people who are abroad will suffer as a consequence!

Thanks for the info. I did know it is a 'rip off' call charge. I have asked the surgery if they have an alternative & they don't have.

If I write to te MP the surgery may not look too kindly on it & I would hate for my parents to think I have upset the surgery as they are very good to them, as is their GP.

Well, the surgery should have been told of an international alternative number they can give to those who are calling from abroad. If they do not have one, you will have to speak to either your MP, or the local PCT, or even Ofcom, so that you can get that number. It is completely unacceptable that they should not be able to provide you with that number (aside from the numbers being a complete rip-off anyway).

may be you can request number under freedom of information act and see what they can tell you.

If the surgery has said they don't know it, they won't know it, Unfortunately we cannot use the FOI against NEG so the most we would get from them would either be the 0870 number or nothing.

Interestingly my surgery's... Out of Hours for Emergencies is a geographical number, so perhaps that may be an option, when you are abroad.

Thanks for all yiur helpful replies

Contact a local newspaper about the surgery.

Dave wrote on Feb 4^th, 2008 at 7:56pm:

Contact a local newspaper about the surgery.

That has been done in my neck of the woods and has not made the slightest difference, they ran the story for two or three weeks and it all fizzled out, this is a from on local doctor's website....

There has been a lot in the press about the new telephone system that the surgery is installing in October.

You may or may not be aware that part of the GPs contract with the NHS is that surgeries have to have annual patient surveys and act on improving any areas that are highlighted as being a problem.   Most of this survey is about access to the surgery and how easy it is to contact the surgery by telephone.  The results of these surveys and frequent comments from patients are that they do experience difficulties when phoning the surgery.  Comments range from the telephone ringing constantly with no answer, or it is engaged all the time.

Previously we had 2 separate lines for appointments and enquiries, but found that patients often tried each number in turn hoping to get through during busy periods and this causes a great deal of confusion for all.  Calls then had to be manually transferred internally to connect the patient to the correct person/number.  The system had been configured as efficiently as it can be, so to rectify these problems we looked at other systems.

The new system allows you as the patient to choose the most appropriate selection from a single telephone number.  It will then notify you as to how busy the lines are at the time you have called so you can call back at a different time if the problem is not of an urgent nature.

The selection you can choose are as follows and prioritised in order of the most frequently used:

  1.

     Appointments
  2.

     Visit requests
  3.

     Repeat prescriptions
  4.

     Test results
  5.

     All other Enquiries

This will also allow us see what selection has been made so the call can be handled in a more efficient manner.  

The cost of calling this new number has caused a lot of confusion and there has been a lot of misquoting of prices in the press.  The calls are charged at BTs local call rate on a standard line, it is NOT a higher rate 0870 type number.  If you have a ‘telephone package’ which promotes ‘free’ local calls they sometimes exclude the 0844 number.  If that is the case, ask your provider to include our number to the free section of your contract. The cost for a 4 minute call to a 0844 number is under 20p from a landline, but will vary with calls from a mobile.

We have given a great deal of thought before moving to this new system and have canvassed surgeries in West Sussex who have had it installed for some time and there is an overwhelming feeling of success and positive feedback from the patients and staff of those surgeries.

Yea right, the highlighted bit is bound to happen!!!!

Quote:

Contact a local newspaper about the surgery.

You can do this under an assumed name.

NEG are aware of the inability to call 0844 numbers from many places abroad and to counteract the protest and indignation hurled at them from many quarters including this forum, they assigned +44 870.. numbers to the surgeries under contract to them for their telephone services specifically to enable contact from abroad.  

Speak to the surgery and if they have not come across this problem before, and don't have a +44 870... number, they will ask NEG for one. My GP surgery has done the same

Thank you all for your suggestions but I do not want to cause problems for my parents  by uspetting the surgery by contacting the press even under an assumed name.

I have an ex sister in law that works there so in an emergency I suppose I can contact her.

There are a lot of abbreviations is these replies that I am not familiar with

I think we can safely assume that the surgery is well aware of the geographical alternatives. It is my understanding that there are direct dial numbers for staff, as well as reception which will be known to the surgery.

Jenpet - read this thread and felt I had to respond... Think I understand your predicament and fully sympathise (my dad is 81 and do the same, but luckily I live in the UK).

Also read various suggestions to complain or write to MP etc... but, understand you may not wish to do this / it may take too long to get a result.

There is another option (technically), but it would be very expensive - but this may not matter to you as much as gaining a direct line of communication with the surgery from abroad.

These days you can get what is known as a Geo Fix or Ghost Number, with (for example) and 0207 area code (which you can obviously call from abroad) and point this number at a specific UK 0844 number.

As I say, this is very expensive - there will be a set up fee for the Geo Fix, probably a monthly rental and they will charge you a transit fee + the 5ppm (pence per minute) call delivery cost for the 0844 number.

My guess would be somewhere around £25 set up, £10 a month rental and 8ppm call delivery.  I know this an awful lot of money to enable calling a doctors surgery in the UK !!  But, at least it is an option........

FYI - I'm not in NTS trade (so don't all shoot me and fully agree with the ethos of this site), but work with Call Centres / Advertising and have to keep an eye on the market.

There are a number of providers that could help you here, but certainly 'in call solutions' (you can google them) should be able to help you out here (they are C&W reseller).

Expensive... But, at least an option... Best of luck !

The operator Voipfone can call 0844 numbers. I was a little surprised to see the tariff as 8p + vat when I expected 5p + vat; maybe I remembered wrong, or they had to increase it.

You can set up a prepaid account with £5, and use it in a choice of several ways:

1. Using VoIP via a softphone in the computer, with headset and microphone or plugged in phone handset. Or a wi-fi phone with the account settings in it.

2. They give you a free 0560 and optional free 0870 incoming number; then you could forward your account to the 0844 number and dial your number from your home. But maybe reaching the +44560 would also present difficulties from abroad. And it still costs you that int'l call.

3. You could call Voipfone's London callthrough access number, from a recognised caller ID registered in your account, then dial the destination.

4. They have a callback system, which you can use online by logging in and entering the 2 numbers you want to connect together, i.e. your home number and the destination. There are also 2 callback method options for use from a mobile

5. Again after setting up call forwarding in your Voipfone account, you can call your account via Sipbroker access numbers in Spain that act rather like a callthrough number, though the onward number is a different format. Dial the access, then either *35030xxxxxx where 30xxxxxx is your 8-figure Voipfone account number, or *01344560xxxxxxx where (0)560xxxxxxx is the incoming phone number for your account


I realise this all sounds complicated, but I'd suggest the last one, as it's access via a Spanish landline, then just dial your number forwarded to the destination

There are rather more complicated methods still, but unless you want to start calling many destinations via the Sipbroker numbers, this is enough for now.

http://www.voipfone.co.uk

http://www.sipbroker.com/sipbroker/action/pstnNumbers -  scroll down to Spain

http://www.sipbroker.com/sipbroker/action/providerWhitePages
- this lists all the provider prefixes, which you don't really need, as I've already given the *350 and *013, but in case you or someone else finds other VoIP providers that can reach 0844 numbers a bit cheaper

It's a solution for now, if you aren't given a geographic number for the surgery ..... if it needs more explanation please ask

Alpha Telecom has 5p/min for 0844 and 10p/min for 0871, about their only good rates

That statement could be seen as being defamatory. Alpha Telecom would probably not agree that those are their only good rates. The statement
Quote:

about their only good rates

is subjective in any case, and is solely the opinion of the OP. It is almost certainly not likely to be the opinion of Alpha Telecom. This statement may not correlate with other observers' opinions about what are good rates?

Are these rates of Alpha's competitive rates, relative to the rest of the market? Are there other providers offering lower rates for the same calls at the same time of the day? You need to be more careful about what you post I would suggest.

With the greatest of respect to the Original Poster (I will avoid the term OP which could clearly be seen as an obscure form of forum abbreviation) it is this old fashioned deference to doctors as people who we do not like to upset (as though are like our schoolteacher or headmaster or something) that leads them to have the nerve to try to get away with switching to these covert premium rate numbers to ramp up the income of their surgery.  In view of the massive practical difficulties the use of this 0844 is causing in your case you really should complain to your parents' MP as MPs are now very concerned about the misuse of these numbers by GPs and the NHS is looking to gather evidence from MPs who have practical examples of constituents suffering real harm.

I know how you feel about not interfering with your parents affairs with their GP as they become older and more infirm but having just been through that dilemma following my 73 year old mother's hip replacement operation I have come to the conclusion that it is inevitable that one must interfere as one's parents get older and less able to stick up for themselves, just in the same way that they had to do everything for you when you were 5 years old.  My mother had her recent hip replacement privately after her NHS doctor had delayed it for over 2 years by denying there was a hip problem and eventually she could not walk at all and was reducing to crawling up the stairs on her hands and knees.  Then after she had to have the operation privately on her medical insurance to avoid a 12 month wait the NHS GP tried to deny her ongoing prescription drugs and essential physiotherapy on the NHS when she returned home by taking the ridiculous line that if she had private medical insurance she was now expected to pay for everything connected with recovering from the hip operation even when out of hospital.  However he reality was that my mother's private medical insurance, like that of many people, only covered her for in patient treatment and even then that was subject to her paying the first £2,500 of claims each year.

So coming back to try to help you what I learned in my mother's case that may help you is that the PCT (Primary Care Trust) responsible for your parents GP surgery will accept anonymous complaints about problems anyone has had dealing with a GP surgery and that they actively encourage such anonymous complaints precisely because they know that they may not otherwise get useful information about poor GP practices because of the old fashioned feelings of deference that most British people generally have towards their doctors.

GPs are jolly well paid professionals who are little more than glorified and very well paid social workers with a medical training and it is quite ridiculous that when a well paid doctor fails to deliver their service adequately (and that failure includes the primary means of communication) that people feel embarrassed about complaining about it.  In my mother's case I found that although she was initially nominally opposed to the idea of my intervening after I did so anyway and spoke to the practice manager to challenge drugs not being provided on the NHS and they then gave in she in fact approved of what I had done as she had been furious about the doctor's attitude and trying to deny her drugs and physiotherapy treatement on the NHS once she was back home.

I agree relationships with parents can be difficult but I think you are being too embarrassed about all this and you should register an anonymous complaint with the PCT (they will have a website which should be linked from the website of the doctors surgery ) If you do also complain to the doctor's surgery directly they are not going to pick up the phone to your parents as it was perfectly obvious to me that they are quite used to children taking up the cudgels for their elderly parents when their parents increasing  infirmity leaves them lacking the energy or faculties to do so properly on their own behalf.

At the least complain anonymously to the PCT and also ideally to at least your own MP (if you are still on the electoral register as an expat somewhere in the UK) as an example of how these numbers are now doing real harm to patient relationships.  Also your own MP is not going to contact your parents about this but he may use the information to add to the clamour of MPs demanding that the use of these immoral numbers by unscrupulous GP practices be bought to an end.

dorf wrote on Mar 11^th, 2008 at 11:54pm:

That statement could be seen as being defamatory. Alpha Telecom would probably not agree that those are their only good rates. The statement Quote: about their only good rates is subjective in any case, and is solely the opinion of the OP. It is almost certainly not likely to be the opinion of Alpha Telecom. This statement may not correlate with other observers' opinions about what are good rates? Are these rates of Alpha's competitive rates, relative to the rest of the market? Are there other providers offering lower rates for the same calls at the same time of the day? You need to be more careful about what you post I would suggest.

Oh dear

I'm sure you were perfectly able to look up the call rates for yourself, and answer your own questions, however:

There are some providers offering 1.4 US cent a minute calls to UK 0844 and 0871 numbers, but I assume this is a database error, probably with an incompletely defined dialplan that would not actually connect the call, so therefore I won't name them.

That apart, there are no providers that I'm aware of in the UK or elsewhere that connect a 5p/min tariffed 0844 call for less than 5p/min. Therefore Alpha's 5p rate is competitive for such calls.


I apologise to other people that my post before that one becomes rather obscure, but as I only discovered these Alpha tariffs in the last couple of weeks, I thought it was worth adding the info, as it will be easier to use their service.

From abroad, one might use their access numbers in the particular country,  but I'd advise against that for cost reasons. Instead, use another service to reach Alpha's London access