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WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL THE NHS HOW MUCH A MOBILE PHONE COSTS TO RUN
After the fiasco when thousands signed a petition on No. 10’s website protesting about NHS using 0870 numbers (they had to climb down and promise to change, but so far no signs) , it seems arrogant NHS Executives still haven’t learn their lesson.
The newest NHS dept – dealing with an investigation into Generic drugs – has opened an office. In fact, as is their wont, it has several offices to spread the jobs around the UK. And each one of these offices only has a mobile phone number for us to contact.
We are being asked what we think about the possibility of taking generic drugs; there is evidence to suggest that possibly these possibly could produce some of the nasty side effects we encounter – but if we phone to give our side of things it is going to cost us several pounds to get this over.
In case you have indulgent parents, or a boss who doesn’t query phone bills, the cost of calling a mobile phone might shock you. My wonderful IT guru Alun comes up with following costings:
There’s a 9.2p connection charge, so a 1 minute (or 1 second!) call on average mobile will cost 12.5p + 9.2p = 21.7p.
2 minutes will be 2 x 12.5p + 9.2p connection charge = 34.2pence.
So if you are a patient calling in, and paying your own phone bills, an average ten minute call is costing you quite a hefty slice of your disability allowance – or beer money.
However, if the NHS lived in the real world, and used BT Option 3 or similar packages provided by other telephone land line companies, the same call to an 01, 02, 03, 0845 or 0870 on option 3 is FREE – so long as the call lasts less than one hour.
And this office say that executivers are going to work from home. Well, I always thought it was a simple process to re-route incoming calls – it just needs a little bit of nous.
Alun’s comments: “Are they really running mobile numbers – beginning “07? Wow!”
And we thought that GPs offering 0870 numbers were a rip off!!!
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=25501
Tagged: BT Group, Landline, Mobile, Mobile phone, Telecommunication
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