Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if NHS England will take steps to terminate contracts for 0844 numbers entered into by GP surgeries.

Regulations introduced in 2010 prevented general practitioner practices from entering into, renewing or extending a contract for telephone services unless it was satisfied that, looking at the arrangements as a whole, patients would not pay more to make calls to the practice than they would to make calls to a geographical number.

The number of practices using premium rate numbers is reducing as contracts come to an end, and a large number of practices using 084 numbers also have a local alternative. NHS England continues to work with practices that have premium rate numbers and will review progress periodically.