NHS Direct says it has no 0845 plans

NHS Direct has said it has no plans to switch its premium rate 0845 telephone number to a standard rate 0345 number that has been reserved for its use.

Last week BT Wholesale published a briefing note on its website stating that the 0345 4647 number would “eventually replace the NHS Direct number 0845 4647” after a period of parallel running between the 0845 and 0345 codes.

The announcement was welcomed by campaigners who have been working to halt the use of the premium rate 0845 number but the briefing was removed from the BT Wholesale website after its existence was highlighted.

A spokesperson for NHS Direct told EHI Primary Care: “NHS Direct has reserved the 0345 4647 number. There are currently no plans to utilise this number.”

She added: "NHS Direct asked BT Wholesale to take the note down as it was misleading."

She added that NHS Direct’s preferred option was to move to a 3 digit number as part of the non-emergency care initiative.

David Hickson, one of several campaigners who want to see the use of revenue sharing numbers abandoned by the NHS, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the news.

He told EHI Primary Care: “It leaves an awful lot of people still spending an awful lot of money to contact NHS Direct.”

In January health minister Ivan Lewis told MPs that he gave a “cast iron guarantee” that the government would not allow NHS Direct to use an 0845 number when its contract came to an end but no further announcement has been made.

This week Rob Marris, MP for Wolverhampton South West, whose intervention in the January Parliamentary debate led to Lewis’ guarantee, has written to the health minister.

In the letter he said nothing had happened since the minister’s promise was made to abandon the number in January and queried the current position over the 0345 number.

He added: "I should be grateful if yuou or one of your colleagues could let me know what is going on and when the 0845 number will be replaced."

EHI Primary Care understands that while the original intention was to move to a standard rate 03 number, plans were affected by the possibility of introducing a three digit number for urgent non-emergency care.

In last month’s NHS Next Stage Review Lord Darzi said that the DH would look at the costs and benefits of a three-digit telephone number for urgent care and report back later in the year.

However, Hickson argues that a three-digit urgent care number would not necessarily be suitable for NHS Direct which offers health advice for non-urgent as well as urgent health care.

He said: “Whilst this sounds like a good idea, it will be very difficult to get this to work properly as there are so many different agencies and different local arrangements involved. If NHS Direct is to be at the front of this, it would require a major reconfiguration of its services and would still require a separate number for non-urgent access. This is not a valid reason for a further delay".

While the debate over NHS Direct’s number continues the DH investigation into use of 0844 revenue sharing numbers by GP practices has also yet to produce any results or announcement from the DH.

This week Jenny Randerson, the health spokesperson for the Welsh Liberal Democrats called on Welsh health minister Edwina Hart to ban the use of revenue sharing numbers in the Welsh NHS.

She said: “While some of these numbers can raise extra cash for the NHS, it is very unfair on some of the poorest patients out there.”