GP Surgeries: Telephone Services

(asked on 30th June 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many GP surgeries use 0844 numbers; and what steps he plans to take to reduce the use of such numbers in the next five years.


Answered by
Alistair Burt Portrait
Alistair Burt
This question was answered on 6th July 2015

Regulations introduced in 2010 prevented general practitioner (GP) 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. As at September 2014, over 7,500 (97%) of all GP practices in England were using only local numbers 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.

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