Anger at surgery number

11:16am Thursday 8th May 2008

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A RETIRED telecoms worker has blasted doctors' surgery managers whom he claims are making money out of patients.

Raymond Palmer from Pickering is outraged that the town's GP practice has changed its local telephone number to a more expensive national rate.

The 61-year-old, who worked for British Telecom until he retired, claims this is exploiting the infirm and fears that the automated system will confuse pensioners.

He said: "Everybody in Pickering is going ballistic. Before, you just rang the surgery direct, now you are put on hold and have to press buttons for all these different options. This is extremely confusing for old people and not to mention expensive.

"Now the charges are 6p for the connection and 5p a minute after that."

Practice manager John Fletcher said they installed a new system after receiving complaints from patients who were left listening to an engaged tone on the old number. He said the £18,000 system is crucial to cope with the increasing number of calls.

He said: "This new system has more incoming lines and instead of listening to an engaged tone patients will be dealt with sooner."

He said profits from the calls will be ploughed back into new medical equipment in the surgery.

"This equipment will make the surgery more efficient and we will be employing more staff to answer the telephones. Without this extra income we would not be able to afford the system and a new ultra scan machine.

"If patients stay on, their call will get answered and we are working to get calls through within 18 seconds in the near future."