At last the new
Surgery Line website is up and running.
Visitors may notice a difference of approach, as it is no longer exclusively a "co-funded" product. The body of the information makes cautious reference to NHS regulations, in a tone which almost suggests that clarification of the ban on use of 0844 number is imminent.
Links to a special document "
NHS Regulations – Supporting GPs with Compliance - Effective January 2013" are presented, almost as a footnote. This document offers a wholly impenetrable and largely incomprehensible opinion on the question of whether callers pay more to call 0844 numbers. A lot of spurious nonsense found in earlier versions has been removed. This document does however fail in its third paragraph by suggesting that GPs need not consider each and every patient of the practice.
Whatever the merits of the complex arguments that follow, this suggestion strikes at the core principle of the NHS being a "universal" service. NHS-contracted GPs have a statutory duty to have regard to the NHS constitution which states this well-understood principle clearly.
The contractual requirement is not based on determining whether 0844 or geographic numbers are cheaper, in some general sense. It prohibits use of numbers which, having regard to the arrangement as a whole, are more expensive. If this were even true for a small, but significant, minority of callers, then use of such a number would be prohibited. One cannot be sure of the mix of tariffs which apply to callers to any particular practice, however it is inevitable that a significant number of callers (in most cases a majority) will pay more to call a 0844, than a geographic, number.
We must remember that the NHS is all about minorities - everyone in need of healthcare. At any time, it is funded by the taxes paid by the healthy majority so that services may be provided to the minority that need them. Over time, an individual citizen may move between the two groups, at rates which vary between them, but at any time it is the needy minority which is the sole focus of the NHS. (There are other ways of funding healthcare, but we are concerned here only with the NHS.)