Mick Pilling (Chairman) Save Bridlington Hospital Campaign Action Group Writes:

Is this yet another stealth tax dreamt up by the PCT's in this region; if its not cost saving exercises and reducing services; its another money making idea!  Stick-up for your rights refuse to pay this charge its preposterous & outrageous and down right un-called-for!
Thousands of patients across East Yorkshire are being charged extra to call their local GP surgery.

Eleven doctors surgeries have switched to automated phone systems that are more expensive than local calls.

Patients are paying up to 5p per minute from landlines and up to 40p per minute from mobiles on each call to the new 084 numbers. Practise's earn 2p per minute from each call.

Under the new Surgery Line system, callers do not receive an engaged tone if the line is busy. Instead they are placed in a queue and given a list of options, such as appointments, prescriptions and test results.

However, the call does not tell people their bills are rising while they are on hold.

Before the system was introduced, people calling these surgeries on a Kingston Communications line could do so for free as part of a local calls package.

BT customers would have been charged 3p a minute at peak times and 4.5p for up to an hour off-peak.

Ian Burns, 75, of Church View, Patrington, claims he was placed on hold for 10 minutes when he called his surgery.

Despite having already been charged 50p, he said he only moved from 17th in the queue to 13th.

He told the Mail: "A lot of people don't realise that the number is more expensive. As far as I am concerned people shouldn't have to pay extra just to call their local doctor."

He and his wife Megan, 72, often phone the surgery as she suffers from diabetes. He said: "Unfortunately, it is the ill and the infirm who will suffer because they rely on their local doctors more."

Today, a Department of Health spokesman said ministers had written to primary care trusts asking them to try to prevent patients being charged extra to call their doctor.

He said: "NHS organisations have a duty to ensure they provide the best possible service to patients without exploiting them."

A spokeswoman for Hull Teaching Primary Care Trust said it had written to GPs and dentists urging them not to use systems with higher call charges.

However, she said the decision was down to individual practices.

East Riding of Yorkshire Primary Care Trust said it was happy to work with any practice wishing to review its phone systems "to ensure primary care services are as accessible as possible to the general public".

Surgery Line supplier Network Europe Group (NEG) said it had been in talks with many more doctors across the region about switching to an automated system. It claims it allows 96 per

cent of callers to get through to their practice first time.

A spokesman claimed GPs were not using it to make money, but to improve the service for patients.

He said one of the benefits was that callers knew where they were in a queue and could get automated information, such as opening times.

One of the practices to recently convert to the 084 number is the Burnbrae surgery in Holderness Road, east Hull.

A spokesman said the practice was not making a profit out of patients.

He said: "The benefits to patients outweigh the small costs for them. No system is perfect, no matter how hi-tech it is, it's still dependent on how many people within the surgery are available."

He said the surgery decided to install the new system because the old one was out-of-date and could not cope with the demands on a modern practice.

"In all fairness, we have received some complaints about the costs as well as compliments," he said.

Say No to 0870

www.saynoto0870.com

What do you think?