Dave wrote on Jun 24
th, 2011 at 8:52pm:
As a campaigner for fair telecoms, I deplore that any organisation (as receiver of calls) should seek to influence the choices of callers as many 084x number users do, what with "local rate" et al.
I see it as perfectly fair for users of business and premium rate numbers to seek to influence the choice of callers by soliciting calls, or even suggesting alternative means of contact for those who are unhappy to pay the "service charge". I cannot see how one may object to that in principle, on grounds of fairness.
Material misrepresentation of call costs, and on other points, is however a totally different matter, which must be deplored from all quarters. That is simply wrong, regardless of any consideration of what may or may not be "fair".
For Dr Taylor to state that "we are charging a good rate" is a complete misrepresentation of the reality of the situation. Neither Dr Taylor nor any agent of the practice is responsible for setting the charges that telephone callers pay. (The only exception may be Talk Talk, Dr Taylor's own telephone service provider, who he claims to be "penalising" his patients by offering call inclusive packages.)
Dr Taylor is entitled to suggest that the subsidy he earns should not be paid for by callers to the surgery. This is however only his opinion and he fails to suggest what alternative source of funding should be used and how this could be reflected in the terms of the type of alternative telephone calls package which he argues should be used. Some may agree and this matter could be debated at length, however it is totally irrelevant to the matter in hand which relates to the situation which exists in fact. Ofcom is in fact moving in the opposite direction to that proposed by Dr Taylor as it proposes to remove BT's obligation to cross-subsidise the cost of calls to all NTS numbers and to make the "service charge" element of call costs more transparent.
In making his argument Dr Taylor is out of step with the BMA, which proposes that patients should indeed provide this subsidy, if it is being used to provide a higher quality service to patients. This proposal was however rejected when the contract revisions covering use of 084 numbers by NHS GPs were agreed. In response, the BMA now encourages its members to achieve its policy objectives by deceit - pretending that no additional cost is incurred by callers, despite the fact that this is demonstrably untrue and acknowledged by Dr Taylor.
Dr Taylor has totally missed the point by suggesting that his contract only covers those cases where the relative cost of a call to the surgery, as against that of an equivalent call to a geographic number, is set by GPs themselves. Despite his attempt to pretend otherwise, there are no such cases, and that is not what is specified in the terms of his contract with the NHS. His contract explicitly requires him to have regard to "the arrangement as whole", not just some alternative contract options.
This is one of a number of cases involving the North Essex PCT cluster which are receiving attention at present. It will be interesting to see if perhaps there could be a positive outcome. (If anyone reading this message is involved as a patient in another case, please get in touch.)
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GPs all over England (not just in South Yorkshire) (Read 945,527 times)
