Sheffield Local Involvement Network

LINk continues to get calls from people about the cost of calling their GP practice on 0844 or 0845 numbers. We have continued to follow this up with NHS Sheffield who tell us that “all practices in Sheffield now either have a 0114 number or a Call Back Policy in place”.

Sheffield currently has 88 GP practices spread across 114 sites and LINk has discovered that 32 practices now have an 0114 number (open a list of practices and their numbers) including Page Hall Medical Centre, which is changing its number on December 1st.

The remaining practices have made sure that calls to 084 numbers will cost the same as any call to an 0114 number when using a BT landline only.  These practices will also call anyone back who is using a non-geographic number, such as a mobile phone or landline from other providers such as sky/Virgin media etc . Please be aware that when you ask for a call back, the practice will ask the number you are calling on to check that you are actually paying a higher rate. Practices should also be actively promoting their call costs and call-back service to their patients. Each practice should also be reviewing their phone policy every 3 months.

Some of the issues you have been reporting to LINk recently have been around the time it takes to get through to your practice in the first place and the cost of being in a queue. We raised this with NHS Sheffield but this is an issue for the individual practice and the system it uses.

However, LINk keeps a log of all issues reported to us and once we have several the same, we can investigate a particular practice. Therefore, please contact us and let us have your stories on this.