Not sure this is quite a health and fitness thing, but why do the NHS, or some of their depts, insist on using "Private number" when they call you? Phone rang just as I was going out, fished it out of pocket, see "Private number" so ignore it. It goes off again immediately, so I decide to give them the benefit of the doubt – and it was about an appointment for my son. I realize they don't want people calling back on that number but surely it's easy to both block incoming calls and have the number display as something relevant (like "BRI outpatients" in this case)? Telecoms have been able to do this for 20 years or so.
It's about privacy- they don't want to advertise to other people that the GUM is calling you.
Exactly.
That and NHS trusts are large, bureaucratic organisations, which means you've got a good chance that their lowest-bidder outsourced telephony is set up in such a way that it couldn't present DID numbers for the relevant department if it wanted to. While presenting the main hospital switchboard number would be useful for when you're deciding whether to answer the call, it would also cause the poor switchboard operator to be inundated with calls from confused people returning their missed calls.
MY GP's surgery has a workaround for this: When you reject the call with withheld CID, they try again from their fax line, which does present CID. Neatly solving the communication problem, if not the privacy one
[1].
Of course, this could all be solved if the NHS were dragged kicking and screaming into the Century Of The Fruitbat and allowed to use email. I'll gladly sign a disclaimer and give you my public key, just sign me up, for fuck's sake. Fat chance.
As for opt-in, that's even worse. Either you try to automate it, which means an NHS IT project (and we all know how those go), or you put some sort of flag in the patient notes and expect the person calling to withhold or present the number on a case-by-case basis. Which clearly isn't going to work, because most hearing people when faced with a telephone number and some supplementary notes, will dial first and ask questions later. It's impulsive, like there's an important part of their brain that's permanently set to "phone a friend" rather than reading or applying common sense.
[1] Pragmatically, they bombard me with sufficient routine asthma checkups and minor administrative cockups that anything contentious ought to be lost in the noise. But, having been there, it's different when you live with your parents and want to access GUM/mental health support.
