I have tried to search for the original thread where this was previously discussed but to no avail.

Here is part of an e-mail received in response to a complaint made by me in March this year. If anyone has any comments before i reply I'd be interested to read them. Thanks. Mr K.


Dear Mr X,

In answer to your complaint.
The Telecoms Provider we are with is Cable & Wireless
Cost of calls 5p per minute, of which the Trust receives 1.5p with C&W receiving 3.5p
Revenue to the Trust in the last quarter was £299-00, which goes back into patient services.

The Trust adopted a 0844 number to provide a single non-geographic contact number. A non-geographic number is used so as not to provide a bias to a particular area bearing in mind the geographic coverage of the Trust. Also, as there is uncertainty regarding the future location of the Trust headquarters it was felt preferable to use an 0844 number to reduce future number changes. The number also allows the Trust to quickly divert incoming calls to another location in the event of problems at Trust Headquarters.

We have reviewed the use of a 03 number which would be preferable, however, the Trust would have to bear the forwarding cost of any calls. This could cause considerable cost to the Trust and additional funding would need to be found. It is disappointing that the 03 number range cannot provide a cost effective solution for the public and organisations such as ourselves who do not look to profit from providing such contact numbers. Regrettably, the introduction of an 03 number is not possible at this time.

We will continue to explore ways in which we can offer a non-geographic number which is more accessible for the public. In the meantime, I will discuss this matter with our Trust communications department as a viable solution would be to publish the geographic equivalent number along with the 0844 number so that callers have a choice of how they wish to contact the Trust.

I apologies for the delay in replying, but your query came into the Trust at the same time that we were investigating the use of an 03 number and I was hoping we'd be able to provide a positive response.

Yours sincerely

Y
Telecoms Manager

In other words, he is saying that it is prefereable for the patient to incur the extra costs involved in ringing an 0844 xxx number, than it is for the Trust to incur extra costs.

That's real public service for you!

Doesn't matter if the costs are covered by an 0844 number or an 03 number paid for by the Trust. We, as in the taxpayers, pay for it whichever way it's funded.

The difference in real terms though is that if it were an 03 number funded by the Trust the cost would be spread across all tax/NI payers and 100% of the monies go to the Trust. With the 0844 number only those using the system pay, and not all the bill goes to the Trust.

Having said that though. The cynic in me feels that the Trust wouldn't get an extra money to cover the costs anyway so that would have to come from elsewhere in the budget. So they lose the 300 quid or so they get extra from the 0844 number and a bit more probably.

So I'm tempted to say the 0844 number is not ideal but maybe the best of a bad job. Would help though if the split between C&W and the Trust were biased more to the Trust. Might make the phone bill a bit easier to swallow if you knew a significant chunk was going to the Trust rather than C&W

This topic is being discussed on Saynoto0870.com here.

These trusts are choosing to charge patients for NHS services which breaks the first principle which is that it should be "free at the point of need."