Forest Health Care has welcomed a government review of phone numbers used by GP practices.

The practice partnership, which includes Cinderford Health Centre and Ruardean surgery, adopted the government-approved 084 number service two years ago. Despite offering an improved service there are fears it may be unfairly charging patients.

The 084 numbers should cost patients about 5p a minute but for people using a mobile or with some land line packages a call could cost up to 40p per minute.

Now the Government has called for a three-month consultation into the use of the phone service.

Practice manager Sally Charlton said: "We welcome the review and if there is a practical way of changing the system without incurring costs then we would support it."

Sally says the surgery spent several years looking into the 084 service before making the change and did so with the best intentions.

"At the time when we changed our phone service in 2006 we had a lot of patients complaining about our phones being constantly engaged," she said.

"The phone equipment had become obsolete and we had no way of measuring the number of calls we were receiving.

"Since we made the change the service has improved greatly but we didn't appreciate at the time that there would be these hidden costs."

There had also been fears that GP practices may have profited from the new service but that is not the case.

"Any money made from the calls is offset against the lease but is not enough to cover it," said Sally.

"We aren't making money from it and our costs have actually gone up as we now have to ring a lot more patients on their mobiles."

Nikki Wood, head of patient services at the surgery, said although there had been a few patients unhappy with the 084 system the majority were pleased with the service.

"We conduct patient satisfaction surveys and with the old system only 44% of people were satisfied with the service whereas now 73% rate it as good or excellent," she said.

The surgery still has five years to run on its agreement with service providers NEG but say they will gladly change the service earlier if the consultation comes up with a viable solution.

Forest Health Care have also made steps to include their communications through their website. You can now find out opening times, repeat prescriptions and general information at www.foresthealthcentre.nhs.uk