We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
The Forum now has a brand new text editor, adding a bunch of handy features to use when creating posts. Read more in our how-to guide
Hospital Phone Call Costs increase to 26p/minute
Former_MSE_Dan
Posts: 1,592 Forumite
The cost of hospital patients' calls to friends and family has increased 160%, with prices rocketing from 10p/minute to a huge 26p/minute.
What does this mean for patients?
You'll pay more to call home! Coupled with many wards not allowing the use of mobile phones, this can be serious for in-patients. If you can, avoid using these lines - though for many that isn't a pleasant thought. If you do have to use them, just be aware of the disgustingly high cost
Why has this happened?
Patientline, who operates phone calls into and out of hospitals, is a private company. It claims large amounts of money has been invested into hospital phone services, and this measure is aimed at recouping some of those costs.
The idea was it would provide lots of patient monitoring services from the same kit, yet there's been virtually no take up of these, so it needs to recoup its costs from the phone service.
Whether this is an ordering fault or Patientlines fault, such high charges for people to talk or be spoken to are unreasonable.
For more information on this, read Martin's Blog , written when Patientline also increased prices for incoming calls last year.
What does this mean for patients?
You'll pay more to call home! Coupled with many wards not allowing the use of mobile phones, this can be serious for in-patients. If you can, avoid using these lines - though for many that isn't a pleasant thought. If you do have to use them, just be aware of the disgustingly high cost
Why has this happened?
Patientline, who operates phone calls into and out of hospitals, is a private company. It claims large amounts of money has been invested into hospital phone services, and this measure is aimed at recouping some of those costs.
The idea was it would provide lots of patient monitoring services from the same kit, yet there's been virtually no take up of these, so it needs to recoup its costs from the phone service.
Whether this is an ordering fault or Patientlines fault, such high charges for people to talk or be spoken to are unreasonable.
For more information on this, read Martin's Blog , written when Patientline also increased prices for incoming calls last year.
Former MSE team member
0
Comments
-
The Secretary of State has just issued new guidance to NHS Trusts on the use of mobile phones in hospitals - download pdf file from here
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/DH_074396
Although your hospital is likely to prohibit the use of mobiles on wards it should allow you to use them in public areas - if you can get that far!0 -
But when I went in recently they try to tell you in writing there is no safe place for valuables-then contradict this when you are in(minus your phone!)0
-
This is absolutely appalling, that sick people and relatives are being robbed that way. UGH. I bet there will be lots of people sneaking mobiles in against the rules I certainly would.0
-
-
its not just patientline my local hospital uses premierbedside who put there phone call charges up the same time as patient line.
Its bedside robbery.0 -
I do think moblie phones near life saving equipment could be a danger, but on saying that, many doctors in hospitals use them while doing rounds on the wards. I used to work in a Doctors surgery patients were requested to turn off their mobiles, they were told it might interfere with computer equipment. Nonsense! All the doctors had their mobiles switched on.....AND they there was a mobile phone for staff to contact a doctor in an emergency. Speaks volumes doesn't it? Looks like it's one rule for Joe Public and one rule for Hospital doctors.0
-
Wow, shows the difference between a state-forced monopoly and a free market. You'd think the government, having utterly failed in choosing a decent network provider, might be able to at least provide an element of competition - obviously networks tend to be natural monopolies - by encouraging the use of override providers for call provision. If they are going to prevent you choosing your provider/network via use of your mobile phone, then they should fix the phone calls at the national average for that call type so that whilst it may not be competitive, at least it isn't extortionate either. If the company can't make a profit on the average it ought to be replaced.
When the market's broken, fix it. If it isn't, don't. This is certainly the former situation.
Hospitals are a bit of a sore point for me considering they keep trying to close my local one. Cheap phone calls will matter even more when the local ill aren't even local anymore.0 -
This is a farce - captive market - it ought to be stopped. I was in and out of private hospitals in London for over eighteen months as a visitor recently and not one of them has a mobile phone ban in place - patients were using them in the hospital to call the doctors and vice versa in all areas!
This is just a money making scheme and it should be stopped - if I was in hospital I would ignore it and see what they tried to do about it!0 -
Would be handy to have a thread on which hospitals allow mobiles,and peoples experiences when there,re phoning and security of their phone.0
-
I've seen anaesthatists answering the senior surgeons mobile while he's involved in heart surgery!0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 354.5K Banking & Borrowing
- 254.4K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 455.5K Spending & Discounts
- 247.4K Work, Benefits & Business
- 604.2K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 178.5K Life & Family
- 261.7K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.7K Read-Only Boards