Source: http://www.shropshirestar.com/show_article.php?aID=32523

The Sick and elderly at a Shropshire doctors' surgery have had to pay up to £5 to book an appointment because it has switched to a premium 0870 number, councillors have heard.

The surgery, at Much Wenlock, has made the switch in a move to increase efficiency, allowing callers to get through more easily rather than always hearing the engaged tone.

But that has angered patients who say they are sometimes left on hold and charged up to £5 on their phone bills to book an appointment.

The surgery, at Kingsway Lodge, in King Street, has told the town council people do not have to pay more to get through. It has also installed an additional "lo-call" number so that people can make calls without having to pay so much.

Today the surgery was closed and calls were being diverted to operators.

Much Wenlock Town Council was told on Thursday that many people wanted the surgery to return to its previous system to prevent spiralling costs. Councillor Derek Hill said: "I know of somebody who rang the doctors and it cost them £5 for the call."

The town council plans to invite representatives of the surgery to discuss the issue and try to resolve it.

But less than 1% have complained about the number!

How do I know? Because NEG said so.

juby

I wrote to this practice recently asking various questions under the FOI act and have received a reply, which is a “Public Interest Refusal Notice” on two of the questions, which were:
    1. What is your current underlying geographic telephone number?
    2. What income do you and/or the telephone system company derive from non-geographic calls on 0870 and 0844?
The reasons given for this were as follows.
    1. “The release of the underlying phone number could confuse patients, as they would then have two different numbers on which to contact the practice.”
    2. “The release of the number and/or the income derived from the provider may cause the practice to breach its contract, potentially subjecting the practice to legal action.”

They then go on to say “The practice does not make any profit from the telephone system or use of the number. This is prohibited by directions issued by the Secretary of State for Health. Should the income from calls exceed the cost of the system rental, the funds are used to renew equipment within the practice” Surely this is a contradiction as they are going to use the income to offset the system rental and also put any surplus towards renewing equipment?

They also go on to say “With regard to patients calling from overseas, we have to-date received phone calls from abroad since using the 0870 and 0844 numbers, none of which had reported any problems getting through. However as part of NEG’s focus on customer service and as 0844 numbers are not currently supported worldwide, an alternative number has now been issued in order that patients may always contact the surgery when travelling abroad.” Again this contradicts their earlier statement about “confusing the patients,” and they do not say what this number is or where it is displayed.

I intend to write to them again to request this number for overseas use and to say that their first refusal reason is pathetic. Would they be in breach of their contract to release the geographic number or are they trying to hide behind this statement in the hope that I won’t push them on it? Would a letter to the Information Commissioner be justified now or should I have another go to see if they will release the number? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I will be writing back to them shortly to find out what the number is for overseas patients and how they let patients know that this number exists. Its not on their letter heads so I hope it is displayed prominently in the surgery. I shall also be asking for an internal review though I suspect this will just be a rehash of what has already been said. If they are going to use "breach of contract" as an excuse then we will never get the GN number, and it rather defeats the purpose of the FOI act.

HI Ricardo


"I have spoken to NEG who have said that they know of no 0870 number that will not work from abroad and were told this by their number provider Opal Telecom. On speaking to Opal I got the same response. Does anyone have definite knowledge of 0870 numbers not working from certain countries for me to give as examples?"

Yes the poor folk outside the UK that could not call the 0870 number given by the met police after the london bombs.

There are lots of examples in the thead here "London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number"  about this, also the fact 0870 could not be called from outside the UK made it to the papers and TV.

I thought that the Dept of Heath had banned the use of 0870 in england by NHS G.P's or maybe that rule does not apply to calls inbound from outside the UK

It might be worth contacting the Dept of Heath to get their opinion.

For what it is worth I think NEG are scum to try to make money like this from the sick.

Dave

Quote:

So Network Europe Group Plc do not have their own network? So they 'buy in' the services? Why? The only answer I can think of is that it is because they can get away with it!

The company is probably full of accountants and marketing people who wouldn't know the first thing about engineering a telephone system. From what you say, it looks as though it's all figures and statistics to them and how they can make them look good!