I have just seen a poster in the Doctors Surgery giving a telephone number to call if you have problems affording to pay for prescriptions, etc.

It is an 0870 number.

God help us - do the people that organise this stuff have no brains?

Unfortuanately I don't know. This wasn't my GPs surgery. I might be visiting again in the near future so I will try and get details. I wasn't able to take down the info as it just caught my eye while passing with someone and I didn't have pencil and paper handy. It seemed to be a general notice (so not my PCT I suspect) and there was a web site as well so I might do a search.

Keith wrote on Jun 12^th, 2008 at 4:59pm:

Not if you're calling from a mobile!

What's the number?

The situation seems somewhat confused.

The NHS Business Services Authority deals with these matters, some of which can be handled by telephone, generally on 0845 numbers - see http://www.ppa.org.uk//ppa/hwhc.htm.

0845 610 1112 appears to be the number for the printers of the leaflets and forms - 3M Security Printing and Systems Ltd.

08701 555 455 was the number for the Department of Health Publications Order Line. This however has now been changed to 0300 123 1002.

This raises many questions. More investigation is required.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jun 14^th, 2008 at 10:18am:

Some of the confusion referred to is resolved by the following points advised this morning:

- The change of number for the Publications Order Line (from 0870 to 0300) was caused by the fact that there is some other very similar (non-DH) 0870 number and calls were being mis-dialled!

- Responsibility for issuing "Help with Help Costs" publications (including the HC1 application forms has passed from the DH Order Line to the printers 3M.

The change of number on the leaflets was caused by an administrative change, not a change of telephone number.

Even the actual change of number was motivated by a quite different reason. The only positive point to draw is that when selecting a new telephone number 0300 was chosen.


With reference to the post by Loddon this morning.

The "local rate" reference is an acknowledged error that must be corrected.

As for the political point, some would suggest that the present incompetence and ineffectiveness of the government is due to the inability of New Labour to be sustained without Blair, in the same way that Thatcherite Conservatism could not be sustained without Thatcher.

It is hard to see a policy of deliberately saving money for taxpayers by imposing charges on service users (NHS patients in particular) as being characteristic of "Old", rather than "New", Labour. Even the LibDems have abandoned the policy of imposing additional burdens on taxpayers to protect public services. Perhaps this places the issue on which were are campaigning outside the realm of policy-related party politics. Those of us who wish, or expect, to see exchanges between parties on true political issues, rather than apolitical issues of personal managerial competence, find much current discourse to be confusing as pragmatism and opportunism has caused apparently long-held positions to be reversed.

Barbara wrote on Jun 16^th, 2008 at 7:18pm:

I think the organisation you refer to is the Prescription Pricing Authority or now it is called "NHS Business Services Authority" (see link provided by SCV above in reply #6)

There is a thread in the requests section on it here.

The reason I raised this point wasn't to find an alternative number (helpful though that is) but to highlight the stupidity of giving out an expensive number to people who are so poor that they need this help.

Those people are probably not those that access this web site or can even afford to own or use a computer.

It is disgraceful these people are being penalised.

Ring the PPA switchboard in Newcastle. It is a freely available 0191 number and you can ask to be put through to the benefits section. I used 0191 232 5371 and it worked just fine.

Ian