Good to see free NHS 111 number promoted

I was pleased  today to see Alex Neil  promoting that ringing NHS 24 is going to be free in a few months' time, using the NHS non emergency number 111.

This makes an awful lot more sense than the Police chief who suggested charging 50p for 999 calls as a deterrent to people who use it when there's not really an emergency.

Something the Health Secretary said, though, reminded me of something I've been banging on about for a long time - GP surgeries with 0844 numbers. Alex Neil said that a third of people with access only to a mobile phone were deterred from ringing NHS 24 because of the cost. This got me to thinking about the cost of dialling a surgery. Before these numbers were free on landlines, I once racked up £15 during a horrible month of quite serious illness in the household just calling the surgery. And my surgery can be a nightmare to get through to. You can be hanging on for 10 minutes and more after the call has been answered and then as soon as you get to the front of the queue you get cut off.

I contacted my MSP Angela Constance several years ago and she did a whole load of work on this, including raising it in Holyrood with then Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon. My practice is still using an 0844 number and Angela said on Twitter today she'd look into it again for me. In 2010 it was only a very small number of practices, 4%, that were doing this, but if we can get rid of them all, that would make a difference. Let's face it, those on lower incomes are more likely to have to rely on mobiles to ring the doctor and they are likely to need to do so more often. It's not fair for GP practices to expect these patients to use premium rate numbers - free at the point of use and all that.

Angela Constance questions Nicola Sturgeon on GP surgery high rate phone numbers

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have thrown an occasional strop because my GP surgery has an 0844 number. This means that calling to get an appointment or a prescription costs me an absolute fortune. There was one month when the costs purely of contacting the surgery were over £15. Now, I can afford to take that hit, but there are many who can't. Most landlines don't include 084 numbers in their free calls, nor do mobile companies who charge a fortune for them. You also have to bear in mind that many of those on the lowest incomes don't have landlines these days and so are reliant on mobiles.

I raised this some time ago with my local MSP Angela Constance, and she's been really good at continuing to work on this and keep me in touch with what she's been doing on the issue.

Yesterday she raised it with Nicola Sturgeon at Question Time in Holyrood. Here's the exchange:

General Practitioner Practices
(Premium-rate Numbers)

9. Angela Constance (Livingston) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many GP practices use 084 premium-rate numbers and whether it has any plans to actively discourage the use of such numbers by GP practices. (S3O-10892)

The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing (Nicola Sturgeon): As at 3 June this year, there were 44 GP practices using 084 telephone numbers, which represents just over 4 per cent of the total number of practices in Scotland.

We intend to discuss the issue with the Scottish general practitioners committee, which is supportive of the idea that all patients should pay local telephone rates and is considering offering guidance to those practices that use 084 telephone numbers to encourage them to review their current telephone contracts. The Scottish Government would support that.

Angela Constance: I am sure that the cabinet secretary will recall the representations that I have been making on behalf of many of my constituents, who are having to bear the increased costs associated with the use of such telephone numbers by GP practices. Does she agree that it is wholly unacceptable for patients to bear those increases in their phone bills, which, for the many who need to make regular and repeated calls to their doctor's surgery, have been significant?

Nicola Sturgeon: I can understand that view and the frustration on the part of patients. I am sure that Angela Constance will appreciate that only a small number of GP practices in Scotland use 084 telephone numbers, but the practice can lead to increased costs for the patients who use such services. That is why it is important that we work with the general practitioners committee to encourage GP practices that use such numbers to offer local telephone rates instead, if possible. I will be more than happy to keep Angela Constance updated on the progress of those discussions.

I'm grateful to Angela for continuing to pursue this. I know it's only a small number of practices across Scotland, but that will still affect thousands of people who incur extra costs. I guess what I'd be looking for is that if the GP Committee's polite requests were ignored, then legislation should be brought in to completely ban the use of such numbers for all public services.

If your surgery uses a premium rate number like this, please let me know, and if you want to see things change, ask your MSP to take action.

The trauma of trying to get a GP appointment

I'm not feeling great this morning and need to make an appointment to see my GP. Unfortunately, it's not just a simple question of ringing up and being allocated a time. All appointments are now allocated on the day so you have to be on the phone at 8 am if you want to have a cat in hell's chance of getting to see the GP you want.

The first challenge is actually getting through. If you make the mistake of ringing at one second to eight, you get the out of hours message. If you ring at eight exactly, chances are that you'll get a recorded message saying "Welcome to xyz (and the recorded Stepford Woman pronounces it incorrectly too) Medical Practice. Unfortunately the surgery is experiencing high call volumes. Please call back at a less busy time."

Unfortunately, if you call back at a less busy time, chances are you simply will not get an appointment that day.

So, you keep trying to get through and eventually, you will make it to the next automated level of hell, where they imply that you are still a pain in the arse for trying to call at a busy time, but, nevertheless, they've put you in the queue. If you are really desperately needing to be seen, then the chances of you holding on for 10-15 minutes, getting to the "you are next to be answered" and then inexplicably being cut off seem to rise.

So you try again and go through the whole rigmarole. It may by now be 8.30 am. Once you've got your way to the front of the queue again, having been trying for half an hour, you then get a message saying "if this is a life threatening emergency, please press 5 on your keypad now." If it had been that bad, chances are you wouldn't have made it to hear that message.

On several occasions, after going through all of this, I've been told that there isn't an appointment for me that day and there is simply no alternative but to go through it all again the next day.

To add insult to injury, it's cost me a fortune in the process, as the surgery has an 0844 number so is not covered by most landline deals for included calls. I can live with that, even though one time last year when my husband was very ill, it cost £15 in a month trying to procure the appointments he needed as well as over £30 in prescriptions. We have a landline, though. Many people, particularly the poorest, can't afford it and are charged a fortune to call on their mobiles.

There has to be a more efficient system of ensuring the best use of GP time and making sure that access to the GP is easy and free for the patient. This is something I'm going to raise with my MSP because it's an important principle. It worries me that I might be getting an appointment at the expense of someone who needs it just as much as I do and simply can't afford to stay on the line.

Two things need to happen:

1 GPs need to be banned from using 0844 numbers
2 A more balanced and flexible appointments system needs to be in place.

Ironically, it only took 13 minutes to get through today and I had the choice of the GPs I wanted to see, so I'm off up there at 11.30.

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