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BT call charges cut may help GPs
09 Jan 09
BT has scrapped call charges for 0845 and 0870 numbers in a move which could ease pressure on GPs to ditch their 084 numbers.
Calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers can now be included in BT customers' call plans, making them free of charge.
At least 800 practices in England are thought to use 084 numbers – with as many as one in three surgeries doing so in some parts of the country. Numbers beginning with 084 are also used by some hospitals and primary care trusts.
The cut by BT, which applies to 14m customers does not apply to 0844 numbers used by a large number of practices, but could pave the way for further moves by BT and other providers to include this category.
Last month the Government announced a review of doctors and NHS departments using 084 numbers, because customers complained they should not be charged more to call for medical help.
GPs using the numbers argue that it enables them to provide patients with a better service, and cuts down the time taken to contact surgeries by routing calls more effectively.
The public consultation seeks views from patients, GPs, NHS bodies, the telecommunications industry and other interested parties, and closes on 31 March 2009.
Readers' comments
The only GPs who will be "helped" by this move are the 300 or so who use 0845 numbers (in advance of the forthcoming ban) who will continue to receive the revenue share subsidy from BT, even if their patients are amongst the 1.4 million who are on the BT call plan that will enable them to call without charge.
If this move is mistakenly allowed to reduce the pressure on the 1,000 GPs who use 0844 numbers to cease funding their service through payments by patients, then this would be a very bad mistake.
For reasons which I could explain, there is no serious prospect of 0844 numbers being added to call plans.
This move means that some BT customers will not be paying for calls to NHS Direct, whose telephone services are provided by BT anyway, so BT suffers no significant loss in continuing to subsidise its own services, depending on their call plan and the time of their call. It will however make no difference to the substantial surcharges incurred by those who call NHS Direct from other landline providers, call boxes and mobile phones, which are used to pay a subsidy to BT Wholesale, for the benefit of NHS Direct.
If the goverment would advise all potential users of NHS Direct (and other NHS services on 0845 numbers) to transfer their telephone service to BT, then perhaps the NHS would need to be re-branded BT-NHS.
This is obviously nonsense; the important issues raised by the consultation must not be confused by what BT has done.