The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7339 p260
5 March 2005

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Pharmacies can keep premium rate numbers

Community pharmacies will soon be the only NHS contractors in England to be allowed to use premium rate telephone numbers for patients to contact them.

A ban on the use of such numbers by NHS organisations in general, along with GP practices, out-of-hours services providers, dentists and opticians will be introduced incrementally between 1 April and the summer.

The only special service numbers they will be allowed to use will be Freefone and Lo-call numbers. Community pharmacies will not be included in the ban so that they can use premium rate numbers to support their commercial activities.

Sue Sharpe, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, said at this week’s local pharmaceutical committees’ conference that pharmacies were not included in the ban because there was no evidence that they had sought to use premium rate numbers.