BT customers in Northern Ireland will soon be able to call banks, energy companies and doctor’s surgeries free of charge after the telecoms giant vowed to scrap fees on 0870 and 0845 numbers.

The company has said that from January 16 it will no longer apply the tariffs — which currently sit at up to 5.8p a minute from a landline or as much as 40p from a mobile.

Both numbers are used by thousands of banks, building societies, doctors and insurance firms across the UK, as well as NHS Direct.

The price cuts will, however, depend on which package customers are on, which means some callers will not be exempt from the fees.

BT yesterday claimed it was the first UK telephone company to make the numbers free.

It also anticipated that the move — which affects some 14 million customers — will cost the company £24 million.

The Government recently announced a review of doctors and NHS departments using 084 numbers because customers complained they should not be charged more to call for medical help.

Peter Morris, BT director of consumer and corporate services, said the company was responding to public demand.

“We know that the public is frustrated by having to pay higher charges for these numbers, even though BT’s rates were cheaper than our rivals, so we worked out a way to go further and include calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers in our call packages,” he said.

“These numbers are widely used by banks and utilities, and our customers spend 30 minutes a month on average calling these numbers. We hope we have taken a sting out of the price of these calls, but also removed one of those irritations that customers believed was an unfair anomaly.

“Hundreds of thousands of our calls customers in Northern Ireland have free calls included in their package and now all of those customers will have free calls to 0870 and 0845 at times that fit with their calling plan, which is something not offered by any of our competitors.”

BT said that an anytime customer will now get their calls to these numbers for free — as well as all their calls to UK landlines and great rates on mobile calls — for just £4.85 a month.

A customer who is on the evening and weekend package will get their 0870 and 0845 calls for free, as well as their UK landline calls, after 6pm every day and all weekend.

The Department of Health has tried repeatedly to stop GPs using high-cost numbers.

In 2005, it issued guidance over complaints that GPs were using 0870 numbers which are even more expensive. But doctors moved on to 084 numbers — either 0844 or 0845 — which, although not technically premium rate, are still much dearer than a local call.

Two years ago ministers issued further guidance, saying GPs could charge no more than the local call rate of 3.25p a minute.

An official review was launched before Christmas into whether surgeries and Health Service organisations should be made to use local-rate numbers.