Phoning people in Hospital

Fran

Patientline, who I phoned last night was costing me 39p per minute off peak and is 49p per minute other times. They give you some talk before you get through so you're already being charged. It's equally as expensive/difficult for a patient to phone out. Also the TV apparently costs £3.50 to watch. I think it's disgusting and don't think these costs should be incurred either by the patients or by the concerned family/friends who phone them at a time when they least need it.

paulcdb

tell me about it, how many people actually WANT to be in there?

I mean i can understand charging for a phone to cover the costs, but tv? c'mon, i'm glad they didn't charge when i was in hospital for 2 months... no chance i'd stay there otherwise.

jellyhead

yes i know these individual phone and TV things are a good idea but still, they're very expensive and the minimum top up on a card is £5 i think ... i wonder how many patients can't afford it and then get depressed because they're bored.

Savvy_Sue

Also the TV apparently costs £3.50 to watch.

And that's £3.50 per day, so even if you don't normally watch a lot of telly but have a few things you want to catch, you can't ration your viewing in any sensible way.

I agree it is an awful lot to phone people but at least it is possible to do so these days. A few years back my brother was in isolation for several weeks, including over Christmas. We took his own portable telly in because there were very few tvs and no phones by bedsides.

rushnowt

this drove me mad last week, i had two friends who'd just given birth and i wanted to call them to see how they were, if they wanted anything special bringing up etc etc, and they were going mad at me not to ring cos it was so expensive, i took no notice of course, but having just looked at my online bill with an extra £27.50 on it, i wish i'd listened now, i could have spoilt the babies even more, oh well it's done know, not much i can do, and the babies are beautiful ;D

izzy_flint

again they have you by the goolies or gooliettes as they make you turn your mobile phones off so know they can charge what they want and people will pay

Bogof_Babe

It would be good if hospitals provided an (indoor!) area - just one small room would do - where people could use their mobile phones.

I can't believe the signals are so strong that they could interfere with medical equipment, if they were some distance away from operating theatres and ICUs. Some wards are mainly recuperative, without vital electronic equipment, and surely one of the day rooms (do such things still exist?) could be allocated. After all, nearly everyone has a mobile nowadays, and being in hospital is miserable enough without feeling isolated from family and friends.

Or is it a deliberate "nice little earner" for the NHS via franchise deals with the operators?

Savvy_Sue

It would be good if hospitals provided an (indoor!) area - just one small room would do - where people could use their mobile phones.

Last couple of times my Dad has been in hospital he has been able to use his mobile by his bed fairly freely. I guess it may depend what kind of ward you're on and what kind of equipment is around you.

loobyloose

these phones/tv's are great, yea it does cost £3.50 per day for tv 4am - 3.59am, its also got about 14 films, quite crap ones tho. if you havent any money you can tune into a free hours worth of tv between 12-1pm
20p to send text messages (cannot receive texts tho), free radio, even got a radio station that plays the videos on screen. £1 a day to browse the net and send emails, the net only has there set urls, like for shopping etc...
games are meant to be 20p per hour, but i never got charged! i found using the net bit to freeze the screen and all that, just take the red wire out the back and put it back in and it reboots the system! ;-)
cos there technical team takes ages to get to you!
think if i remember rightly it cost you bout 10p permin to phone out to landlines and 20p per min to phone mobiles.
cards can be topped up £3 min.

now who can tell ive not long came out of hospital!

small

My wife came out of Poole Maternity Hospital in October where they had just had the new system installed.

What a shambles..... We didn't get charged for the TV as the quality was very poor (not enough bandwidth on the network for all the TVs).

I got best value by phoning customer services and paying on my debit/credit card. I got an extra £3 with £20 of credit. They can also refund ALL outstanding credit at the end of your stay.

I also joined up 118866 which cut the calling in cost.

One other tip, get the rep that comes round to leave you the Customer Service 0800 number as you'll need to report a problem (via a payphone) if your system locks up. Ours did often!!!!

Fran

Are all these hospitals signing up to the same system? When I tried using 18866 to phone my friend in hospital I still got a message at the beginning of the call to say 39p per minute off peak and 49p per minute all other times, and no mention of what exactly was off or on-peak. I don't see how you can sign up to 18866 from a hospital either (?).