The Department of Health has launched a three month consultation on whether it should ban the use of 084 numbers in the NHS in England.
The 14 week consultation is the latest development in a long-running debate on use of revenue-sharing numbers by the health service.
So far, the DH has seemed reluctant to ban the numbers, despite calls to do so by campaigners. The government has said it will publish a response to the consultation by the end of April 2009.
As many as 1,500 GP practices in the UK are believed to use 084 numbers, which are also used by some hospitals and the helpline NHS Direct.
Health minister Ben Bradshaw said: "We know that some people value the additional service that 084 numbers can offer, but others object to being charged more than the cost of a local call to access NHS services. We receive regular complaints from members of the public and parliamentarians about this.”
The consultation document says: “We wish to find out how valuable people think the enhanced functions provided by 084 numbers are, and how they might otherwise be provided without patients having to pay more than a local call rate for them.”
It also says: “It is not an option to leave things as they are.” Possible outcomes include making the use of 03 numbers universal across the NHS. 03 numbers offer the same services as 084 numbers and are charged at a local rate – but an additional charge is levied against the person or organisation receiving the call.
A ban on the use of 0870 and 0871 numbers by GP practices, NHS dentists and NHS opticians was introduced in April 2005 when the government declared that the use of premium rates by the NHS was “an unfair additional cost” for many patients.
In January this year, the DH announced that it was to run a data collection exercise on the use of 084 numbers in the NHS and health minister Ivan Lewis gave a “cast iron guarantee” that NHS Direct would not be allowed to use an 0845 number when its contract comes to an end.
The data collection exercise was expected to be finished by the end of March. Since then the government has not taken any action, although in a letter to an MP in September, Bradshaw indicated that guidance would be issued to primary care trusts on ensuring that patients can access their GP or other NHS organisations without incurring additional costs.
Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s GP Committee, whose own practice uses an 084 number, said he welcomed the consultation and that he hoped the government would find a way to reduce the cost to patients while maintaining the telephone systems funded by 084 numbers.
He said GP practices did not make a profit from these but were instead investing more money to provide a better telephone system for patients.
David Hickson, a campaigner against use of 084 numbers, said: “It would be a disgrace” if the only action the government took was to conduct the public consultation on the issue.
“It is intolerable that three months is being wasted getting the obvious answer to this silly question about one tiny aspect of the NHS,” he said.
Hickson added: “For the NHS to be "free at the point of need" GPs, hospitals, other NHS bodies and NHS Direct must be required to cease using numbers beginning 0844 or 0845, because part of the payment made by patients when calling these numbers is provided as income or subsidy to the service provider.”
Link
DH consultation on use of 084 numbers
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