Probe due on GP call costs
Patients fear they are being charged over-the-odds for phone calls to premium-rate lines at doctors' surgeries in the Wyre Forest and elsewhere in Worcestershire.
Now health chiefs have launched investigations into the use of high-cost telephone systems by some GPs. The probe follows complaints about call charges and officials say they will check out patient's concerns.
Checks will be made on the 67 doctors' surgeries throughout the county and Worcestershire Primary Care Trust says it will be "working with GPs to put an end to the practice".
Concerns about the cost of calls to doctors through telephone systems that charged callers at premium rates were first voiced across the country two years ago.
Then the Minister for Health John Hutton introduced regulations banning the use of 087, 090 and 901 numbers to protect patients from paying premium and national rates to call GPs and dentists.
He called for practices to change to numbers which offered patients a guaranteed low rate and said that sick people and their families should not be expected to pay "over-the-odds".
Paul Bates, chief executive of Worcestershire Primary Care Trust, said: "The Primary Care Trust itself cannot ban these numbers. It also cannot impose restrictions outside the national GP Contract arrangements. Nevertheless, we are going to investigate the use of these numbers."
