When you ring your doctor is it a premium rate number? Well according to figures up to a 5th of 8000 GP practices with 10 million patients are using 0845 and 0844 premium numbers reports the Daily Mail.
These charged can be as much as 40 pence per minute when dialled from your mobile phone and the doctor receives part of that income. However, ministers in England are now acting to ban doctors from using the premium rate numbers after a review delivered angry responses from more then 3000 members of the public.
Furthermore, the NHS Direct 0845 number may also be changed although consultation on how best to serve patients is ongoing so no actual date for the bans to be put in place have been announced.