Getting into this now! Never mind the patients (actually I really do!) - it's cost my practice we believe £1000 or so with calls to these numbers in the last year! Sorry, the hospital switchboard (geog number) will now be jammed by many doctors as I spread the word!  - no more "direct line" departmental calls.

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The sad thing about the great 084/7 ripoff is that neary everyone loses except for the ripoff merchants like NEG who flog the numbers to business and certain massive call centres who receive huge numbers of incoming calls but hardly make any outgoing calls (eg Sky and the Royal Bank of Scotland group).

If one makes just 20 minutes of calls to an 0870 phone number from a BT landline every weekday in a BT billing quarter that comes to £97.50 of calls a quarter or £390 a year that would have been free within an all calls 01/02 plan if they had been normal 01/02 numbers.  So for it to cost your practice £1,000 in the last year would be easy since 1 hour of calls a day to 0870 is £4.50.  Times that by 250 business days and you are easily over the £1,000.  OK 0845 calls at 3p per minute and 0844 5p per minute don't cost quite as much but still cost between £1.80 and £3.00 and hour for calls that might otherwise be free of charge on a flat rate monthly plan.  Getting to £1,000 for calling these number is a doddle.

Did you realise the whole 084/7 and 09 calls industry is worth about £1.5 billion per annum.