End hospital telephone number confusion

Anne Marie Morris calls for an end to hospital telephone number confusion at Newton Abbot.

Anne Marie Morris, the prospective Conservative member of parliament for Newton Abbot today calls for an immediate end to the confusion over the telephone number for Newton Abbot Hospital after she established that the very latest guide to Local NHS Services, presumably sponsored by NHS Devon, in the September 2009 edition of Yellow Pages which was delivered across Teignbridge only last week, carries the discontinued number for Newton Abbot Hospital.

The correct Newton Abbot Hospital number is 01626 324500

Anne Marie said: “As Devon Primary Care Trust have stated on the record that incorrect telephone numbers can pose a clinical risk to patients this situation is wholly unacceptable. At some stage in the recent past the Newton Abbot Hospital telephone number has been changed and the old number discontinued. There are thousands of copies of directories and other publications in circulation and websites which carry the old hospital number. Devon Primary Care Trust should have made arrangements to phase out the old number over time whilst large numbers of copies of publications carrying the old number were in still in existence. As the old number is not in use the obvious action that Devon NHS should take is to re-connect the old number with a call forwarding facility so that patients can be sure of getting through to the Newton Abbot Hospital when they need to.

I have sought an urgent meeting on Monday with David Radford, the Chairman of Devon PCT and Pauline McLusky, the Deputy Chief Executive of Devon PCT to resolve the telephone number debacle and to ask Devon PCT to address the concerns that local people have shared with me over their healthcare which I reported in my current edition of Teignbridge Matters. I shall not release further copies of Teignbridge Matters for distribution until the telephone number problem has been resolved and until the other healthcare issues have been fully discussed with the PCT. The most important thing is for us all to work together to ensure we have the best access to NHS care possible.

I made the mistake of not ringing all the telephone numbers myself to check that they were all current numbers; a lesson well learnt, but surely with a one billion pound budget there should be enough managers and administrators at Devon PCT to ensure that, what I assume is Devon PCT’s own advertisement in the latest edition of Yellow Pages, carried the correct hospital telephone numbers.

I hope to get an immediate agreement from Devon PCT that the old telephone number will be reconnected as an additional number with a call forwarding facility so that everyone can be sure of getting through to the hospital”.