A GP surgery in Devizes has changed its telephone number to a national call rate number (0870) but insists it is not making money from it.

Southbroom Surgery has entered into an agreement so it gets a hi-tech telephone system for free.

The surgery says the main advantage is that patients no longer get an engaged tone and can decide whether to wait in a queue or ring back. With the previous telephone system patients might have had to call several times.

The provider of the system, NEG, takes a percentage of the cost of telephone calls that patients make to the surgery and also calls that the surgery makes.

BT said the cost of calling an 0870 number is 8p per minute during the day, 4p per minute during the evening and 2p per minute at weekends, although all calls are subject to a minimum charge of 5p.

BT said for people calling a number in the same town it costs just under 4p a minute during the day while during evenings and weekends it costs 5.5p per hour followed by 1p per minute. Again a minimum charge of 5p applies.

NEG chief executive officer Richard Chapman said while some patients might pay more for calling Southbroom Surgery he believes the majority will not.

He said: "I am confident that the majority of the patients will save money on the calls they make to the surgery. In the worst case scenario it could cost some patients 2p more from a landline at peak time for a minute.

"But patients will save time as we can guarantee that callers will not get an engaged tone. If the line is busy they are informed at what position they are in the queue and can decide whether to hang on or call back.

"The surgery is not making any money from the calls. We make less than 1p from each call that patients make to the surgery.

"With our system patients will be saving time and be getting a better service. If people phone a number and it is engaged and they press five on their phone for ring back, BT charges 15p a hit for that."

Mr Chapman said his company had installed the system, called Surgery Line, in 110 GP surgeries in the UK, meaning one million patients were accessing the system.

Viv Laing, general manager at Southbroom Surgery, said: "With this agreement we are getting a telephone system that would otherwise cost us £16,000, which we cannot afford.

One patient said she was sceptical about the new national rate telephone number.

Anne Priest, of Worton, said: "Somebody's making an enormous profit out of this and I don't think I should be charged national rate to call my surgery. The NHS should pay for it, I pay enough in taxes towards the NHS."