Despite official guidance many Crawley surgeries still use a pricey 0844 number, but Crawley MP Laura Moffatt reckons that could soon change.

She said: "This is an issue I feel very strongly about, The Department of Health issued clear guidance as far back as 2005 urging GPs not to use these expensive numbers.

"Sadly many practises ignored this and have not appreciated how expensive it can be for some of their patients.

"People who have to use a mobile phone or a pay phone can pay as much as 40p per minute to contact their GP and the many people who have 'all in' contracts (inclusive of local calls) effectively have to pay charges they would not otherwise incur."

Following a stream of correspondence West Sussex PCT sent round a letter to all Crawley practises asking them to look into changing their numbers.

Acting Trust Director Nicky Cambrook said: "Ofcom created a new '03' number which can be included in all inclusive tariffs and is charged at the same rate as other geographical numbers.

"The number was introduced in 2007 with clear encouragement for practises to use this number in preference to the non-geographical 0844 number.

"I must emphasise the need to ensure that patients are not put in the position of having to pay excessive telephone charges to contact their GP surgery."

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