loddon wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 8:06pm:

1. Get it mentioned with the URL in any national newspaper

2. Track down discussion forums patronised by doctors, nurses or health professionals and post the link there in existing threads or a new thread

3. Track down more general discussion forums on health issues and post the URL there and background to the petition.

4. Acquire a national press release list of all national and local newspapers and email a press release containing details on the petition and its URL.

5. Acquire the name of trade magazines connected with the health professions and send a press release with the URL of the petition website to those.

6. Organise a demonstration to go to the Houses Of Parliament on a weekday (basically Tuesday to Thursday) during the Parliamentary session and for all the members of the website on the demonstration who have an NEG doctors surgery to ask to see their MPs at the House of Commons.

The snag is that Mr Whitehouse himself (any relation to Mary) does not seem to be an active member of this forum so we cannot directly say it is the www.saynoto0870.com petition against the use of 0844 numbers by doctors surgeries.

NGMsGhost wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 8:23pm:


I don't understand the question, NGM.    This is a Petition to No.10 and is nothing to do with NEG, directly; so it deserves a thread in its own right.    There are many doctors using 0845 and certainly some still using 0870 (even though 0870 was officially banned by DoH in 2005).

I don't care whether that "nice " lady reads this really.   She's gone away now hasn't she?   She couldn't be bothered to answer the last question to her so I'm afraid she's a waste of space.    Lets concentrate on getting the numbers up on this Petition.

Thanks for all your suggestions, I will certainly do all I can on the press front.   If a dozen people hit the forums (fora?) and everyone writes to their MP citing the Early Day Motion 1989 we will be sailing!    OK so Parliament's in recess.   If there are a mountain of letters waiting for them on their return it should give them pause for thought!

loddon wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 8:42pm:


Both this thread title and the detailed wording of the 10 Downing Street petition make it clear that it is the use of 0844 numbers that is opposed.  Hence specifically the use of NEG Surgeryline (although not mentioned by name) and not any wider and less frequent use by doctors of 0845 and 0870 numbers.

The NEG thread already had a lot of participants and I believe that thread was the most appropriate place to mention this 10 Downing Street petition.

I see your point -- so what should we do?   I did mention this Petition on other threads previously but it didn't seem to get any real attention.   Now it is something we can specifically refer to and follow.    Surely all experienced participants can find this OK and newcomers will know exactly what we are talking about.

How about contacting our GPs (for those who have not opted for a premium number)? I know my surgery has spoken with NEG and decided against it.

Maybe this is another good petition to sign?

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Listen2aPetition/

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Actually act on one of these petitions instead of sending us pitiful excuses.

Sounds like we aren't the only ones who seem to be getting no reasonable results from the PM .

LOL no. I was checking up on the status of this petition, and decided to pop onto the home page to see how many more votes we needed before we got there. It is the second petition listed under "Five most recent petitions" .

I seem to have managed to start rather a well participated thread on the subject of the anti 0844 doctors surgeryline petition over in the Pie & Piston forum section of www.pistonheads.com ; This forum section of the Pistonheads forum is specifically for off topic non motoring related discussions as you can see from many of the other threads posted.

This is a very busy forum with a lot of members with strong views (i.e. petrolheads) and in just a couple of hours it has prompted a large number of responses already and I am sure has added quite a few signatures to the petition.

There have been several strong posts defending 0844 number use and NEG.  Some of these are from people brainwashed in to believing anything beginning 084 is "local rate" but at least two seem to be from a possible NEG employee (a Rich Burley) who is demanding to have me banned from the forum and another is from a guy who seems to probably be a GP or a GP Practice Manager as he seems to know exactly why doctors surgeries started using the NEG system.

Anyhow you may care to look at it as there are strongly expressed views on both sides and quite a few forum members seems to have signed the petition.  Its now on P2 of the 10 Downing Street petitions site with over 2,500 signatures.  Only 800 or so more are needed to get it on Page 1

See the pistonheads discussion at www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=141&t=425682&i=0