loddon wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2009 at 11:11am:

The web site in question is ready and able to host other responses that may be thought worthy of attention.

Please send them, with some indication of consent to publication, to the email address given below. Material relating to the consultation is indexed at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davidhickson/NHS.Patient/Consultation%20Links.htm.

N.B. It is not the policy of the Department of Health (or indeed other government departments) to publish individual consultation respsonses.

Source: Fenland Citizen

http://www.fenlandcitizen.co.uk/news/5-phone-bill-to-make.5189012.jp

£5 phone bill to make doctor's appointment

Published Date: 22 April 2009
By sarah cliss

A WOMAN has blasted a local doctor's surgery after racking up nearly £5 in phone charges trying to make an appointment.

The woman, who is in her fifties and from Emneth but doesn't want to be named, is furious that calling the North Brink Surgery in Wisbech cost her just under £5 when she tried to make an appointment.

She said: "I started trying to get an appointment by ringing the surgery from about 8.30am.

"But all I could get through to was an answering service, which told me all the operators were busy and to call back later.

"I know that if you don't get through first thing in the morning all the appointments are gone. So I just kept calling, and calling until I eventually got through.

"I didn't realise just how much it was costing me. I got the appointment I needed, but I was horrified when my phone bill came and I noticed that every time I had rung the surgery it had cost me 11p plus VAT.

"I totted up the cost of all the calls and it was nearly £5 – I couldn't believe it, I was just incensed."

Now the woman is warning other people to be on their guard against racking up a huge phone bill simply by calling for a doctor's appointment.

"I wouldn't mind if I had been calling a chat line or something, you exptect that to be expensive – but I don't expect to have to pay out nearly £5 to get through to my doctor's surgery.

"I don't have to see the doctor very often but some people aren't so lucky and I just wonder how many realise exactly what it is costing to make an appointment.

"I have been told the practice gets some of the money from the calls, but I don't think it is right that people who are ill are being take advantage of in this way," she added.

Phillip Wearing, North Brink's practice manager, defended the use of the 084-prefixed phone-line.

He said it had been introduced to improve the service offered to patients.

He said the old system had left patients frustrated because they would get the engaged tone if they rang at busy times.

The new system allows up to 10 people to be held in a queue for an appointment at anyone time, which he said was less frustrating.

He said the practice was investigating what happened on the day the woman called to make her appointment and said the system allowed all calls to be tracked.

Mr Wearing also said the practice was awaiting the outcome of a consultation on the use of 084 numbers by the NHS.

He pointed out patients had the option of making an appointment on-line and added that phone call charges varied according to the tariff imposed by the phone operator.

He admitted other patients had raised concerns about the use of a 'premium rate' phone line by the surgery in feedback forms returned to the practice.

He said the practice received a small rebate on calls to the surgery, but this was simply to cover the cost of the system.

Having just started to watch the BBC daily soap Doctors, it occured to me that this series would be the ideal place for this issue of 0844 versus normal telephone numbers to be discussed in a dramatic sense. The BBC could show all the behind the scenes bribery made by telephone companies, the effects of having to pay for these calls by people on low incomes, etc, etc.

It would get the true facts out to millions of people who have probably never even given these numbers any thought.

Any opinions?

Is this the BBC who for years asked the pulic to dial 0870 numbers to contact them?  They probably would still use them but for people from this forum lobbying against it, so I think the suggestion has probably not got legs! (and the BBC still use 0871 numbers for various contacts such as Saturday Kitchen-may be the wrong program title)

poppasmurf wrote on May 4^th, 2009 at 10:14am:




Well, Doctors does not appear in the top 30 in the viewing figures, and at number 29 and 30 are programmmes called 'Flog It' and 'Department Store' and they are viewed by 1.28 million people. So not quite sure where them 'millions' of viewers from 'Doctors' comes from. Probably more like hundreds!

Poppasmurf, I was only winding you up. Of course I take your point

Pulse Today continues to monitor and report on the Consultation :----


http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=23&storycode=4122956&c=2


10 Jun 09

By Steve Nowottny

The Department of Health has been forced to delay a decision on whether to ban GP surgeries using 084 numbers after receiving an ‘exceptionally high’ number of responses to its consultation, Pulse has learned.

The department had been due to publish its decision, which could affect telephone numbers at around 1,500 GP practices across the UK, by the end of April.


But the department’s 084 consultation team revealed in an email: ‘We have received approximately 3,000 responses to the overall consultation which is many more than we had anticipated getting, and which we understand from the central consultation team is an exceptionally high response rate to a departmental consultation.’

A Department of Health spokesperson confirmed a ‘huge response’ had prompted the delay, but was unable to say when the outcome of the consultation would be published.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copy of letter sent to members of the press.

The DoH Consultation on banning 084 Numbers within the NHS

The Consultation originally promised that the results of the Consultation would be published by the end of April.   That date has been missed by a mile and there is absolutely no indication from the DoH when these results will be published.   I have asked them repeatedly for a new publication date and they have obstinately refused to give any date while pathetically saying that they will publish soon.    This is totally unacceptable, in my view.   It insults the public by not providing a revised date, by witholding the actual responses to the public consultation and is totally contrary to the promises of more open and transparent government by the current Prime Minister.

The DoH continues to hide behind the excuse that the response to this Consultation was so large they were overwhelmed and are still analysing the results.   This is patently untrue.   They have admitted privately that the analysis was completed well before the end of April and a report was placed before the Minister at that time.   What is happening now looks like political prevarication and obfuscation with the intention of keeeping the public in the dark.   Suspicions are being aroused that there is deliberate delay and scheming to mislead the public.

This matter is crying out for thorough investigation and for the DoH to be called upon to open up on what was supposed to be a public consultation.   The public needs to know what was said in response to the consultation as well as the responses from the medical and DoH people and the Telecomms industry, taking account of commercial confidentiality of course.    

It may be that the DoH is still working on how to actually implement a ban on 084 numbers within the NHS but this is not an acceptable excuse for witholding the results of what was said to the consultation given that the results were promised by April.   There is no reason why they should not publish the responses and analysis of the consultation now!    If necessary an accompanying statement could say what they need to say about action or decisions that are ongoing work.

The Government has been forced recently to be more open with trivial matters such as MPs expenses but is that lesson being learned in regard to straightforward matters of public consultation???   This unexpained and unjustified delay together with an absence of honest open communication is now looking very bad for the Government.   The attitude shown by the DoH makes a mockery of the whole idea and purpose of Public Consultation.    We need and demand a statement NOW.