0844 telephone numbers

Lists of information collected from NHS choices about use of 084 and 087 numbers in the NHS are found at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davidhickso....

It is understood that the telephone service provider will receive around 4 pence per minute extra for terminating a call to a top rate 0844 number over what they would receive for a non-revenue sharing call. For a 0845 number the equivalent is around 1.5 pence per minute.

Some of this will be used to cover the cost of additional services that would otherwise have had to be paid for, the remainder will typically be used to partly offset other costs (e.g. of equipment installed at a GP surgery), although it could be taken as cash income.

It is common for the beneficiaries of revenue sharing to deny receipt of income. Unless they are allowing their telephone company to keep the money as unearned profit, they are simply using it to cover costs that would otherwise have to be met in some other way.

Money that is used to reduce costs may not be called “income”; the issue is however one of semantics.

I comment on the response.

The suggestion that practices “do not benefit financially” is simply playing with the truth.

Revenue sharing 0844 numbers are used to provide income, derived from the premium charges paid by patients, that is allocated to fund a particular telephone system.

Exactly the same telephone system could be used on non-revenue sharing numbers which would obviously cost the practice more money. Using a 0844 number means that they benefit financially, as against using a number that is "charged at the same rate as a local call" (to quote the relevant Department of Health guidance).

The practice acquired the new system and the new telephone number at the same time, through the same agent. The fact that the practice does not draw cash income from having the system (although that is promised by the supplier in its published marketing material) does not mean that it does not benefit financially from use of the 0844 telephone number.

Quite how the PCT came to be convinced that patients do not pay for the time spent queuing after calling a 0844 number is hard to understand. One of the advertised benefits of the system used is that all calls are automatically answered immediately (which starts the charging mechanism) so that callers waiting to get through can be kept in a queue rather than getting engaged tone and having to ring again. Users of these numbers even have a means by which they can artificially extend the time spent waiting so as to increase the revenue earned per call-minute. (I have no evidence that any GP in Leeds has ever deployed this feature.)

The provider of the system has published alleged evidence to show that short calls to 0844 numbers are cheaper than those to “local” numbers. This is however fatally flawed as it mis-states BT call charges. Using correct figures shows this claim to be simply false. All calls to 0844 numbers of any duration are invariably more expensive for every tariff from every telephone service provider than the equivalent call to a 01/02/03 number.

If the system offers more effective call handling than other systems, then that is a benefit, but it is the system that does this and, as stated previously, it could be operated on a non-revenue sharing number in exactly the same way. Deficiencies of systems that may have been used in the past have got nothing to do with the fact that the current system is funded by a revenue sharing number.

The contract for telephone service, in all these cases, is with Talk Talk (through its business services division, Opal Telecom). Even if that contract is to remain in place for several years, there is no reason whatsoever why a change to a non-revenue sharing number could not take place within the terms of the contract, as this is normal practice in the telecoms industry. The problem is with making up the money that would be lost if the funding from patients were removed. I have proposed that Talk Talk may wish to save its reputation by making some form of contribution to assist with this.

All of the actual truthful information in the reply is already in the public domain. I do not regard spurious second hand misrepresentations as public sector information that warrants any protection by copyright. As an owner of “our NHS” I claim the right to all information (true or false) held by NHS bodies that is not confidential in respect of the proper right to privacy held by patients, staff and those with commercial relationships.

Much of the information to support the above comments may be found at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davidhickso....

I am happy to be contacted for any further assistance and for detailed references in support of any of the specfic points made above.