Patient Line is a disgusting disgrace Blog Discussion

mellowmarsh

My mum was admitted to Blackpool Victoria hospital with a heart condition about the same time as Martin's dad. I live in London and the only way I could speak to her was by via Patient Line. My sister had set up the phone by her bed but if she wasn't there or if she was being seen by a doctor (a rare occurrence!) my call would go on the voicemail.

At 8:30 on Friday night, without any forewarning, my mum was discharged - she had no credit left on her Patient Line card so couldn't call anyone and the hospital neglected to make the call for her. Luckily my sister arrived an hour later to find mum very upset, sitting in the waiting area in her dressing gown (she had no other clothes with her).

Over the weekend the rest of the family assumed my mum was still in hospital and continued to call the, still active, Patient Line number, and of course got the voicemail. So for two days after my mum had left the hospital they continued to make a tidy little profit out of worried relatives!

southernscouser

firespire wrote:

If it is expensive to call then don't call in.
Personalised TVs are much better than one big one that might disturb others.

The help and compassion on this site never fails to astound me! :rolleyes:

JamesDB

rhig wrote:

I used patient line a few months ago and thought the phone calls were a bit expensive (when calls are made from outside). I think the main reason for the loss is the cost of the equipment, for one bed Patientline supplies a computer with an LCD screen on a movable arm.

I would guess this costs over £1000 per bed as the screen with phone and integrated keyboard is probably bespoke and the arm is pretty sophisticated, allowing a lot of freedom of movement. This hardware is needed for patientline to be able to provide phone/TV and internet to the patient, internet requiring the most expensive hardware and being by far the least used service.

It would be much cheaper to provide an internal VOIP phone service to each bed with the ability to call in/out giving each patient £1 free credit and allowing top up by debit/credit card. VOIP phones only cost around £100 and would take up less space.

They've had a few different people at the top recently, and some reports of not doing well financially. There's two models or more - one is a basic one with TV and telephone, another has a touch screen and a larger LCD display. I think the technology used for the phone is pretty much VOIP up to where it connects to the world. The arm is pretty much a movable desk lamp one with a peice of hose with the cables in it - but I guess they are fairly pricey. I think a mistake they've made is not going with embedded Linux which would have cut out a licence fee for every unit, making each one cheaper to produce and run.

A few years ago a relative was in hospital and you could just call the nurses station and they'd drag them out of bed to come over to the phone. In another hospital they had a telephone for every few wards which was free to call out, and cost the local/national rate to call, depending on where you were.

They took a pocket radio and earphones with them and were quite happy with it. To be honest, I'd not even consider touching one if I was in hospital. Give me a paper from the hospice shop and Radio 2 any day.

(I'd enjoy the peace and quiet of not being contacted, but I know for many it's a vital lifeline. Especially if your immediate family live too far away to visit. I don't know if you can still call as close to the bed as possible, but no way should Patientline be any sort of substitute for it.)

Maybe someone should go on People's Room and introduce a much cheaper alternative which is purely VOIP and radio? VOIP is really hitting the big time now, and big blocks of local and national numbers are being bought by Skype and similar companies. Charge a minimal fee on calls in and out maybe? I think it's a neat idea to give patients, but not at the current price.

aidyonline

hi

i guess i should make clear i own shares in patientline. if it makes you feel better those shares have fallen by 95% and are now worth, oh, about £90.

anyway, patientlines fees are very high and OFCOM i think it was did an investigation into this. because of that the share price plummeted from£1.70 to its current 8p, all investment was postponed and expansion stopped.

the OFCOM investifgation concluded that there was nothing patientline could do about the cost because it was costing it so much to fit the machines in the hospitals that it was only making about 1 or 2 p per minute on the phone calls. also the NHS had verbally agreed to sign up for various functions that the machines could do, but reneged on this. OFCOM concluded that it may either force the NHS to sign up for the other functions of Patientline, or alternatively force the NHS to subsidise the costs of the phone calls.

unfortunately this may be too little too late. the crippling debt that patientline has run up with virtually no further income whilst this investigation was ongoing (for about 9-10 months!) means to my eyes, this company is virtually dead in the water.

all in my humble opinion...

CAHA

There is one important point that appears to have been missed. A few years ago the Government told all hospitals they were to have these communication systems installed. They did not provide any funding and hospitals were told to fund them themselves or go into partnership with the private sector. Bearing in mind that installing a turnkey system in a hospital costs millions - obviously varies depending on size of the hospital. Also take into consideration that the vast majority of hospitals were massively overspent as it is which left them in a no win situation. At that time many companies expressed an interest and made a lot of promises but not sure how many still exist. I do know that some of them made false promises and went bust. A waste of everyones time. Patientline, as far as am aware, are the only ones to have made it work. They, as far as I can see, have played by the rules dictated by the Government. If you are going to vent your wrath with anyone vent it with the Government who put each and every hospital in a no win situation. There are ways around the expensive incoming call costs. Not least buying the hospitalised person a phone card...the rates as I understand it are cheaper than a pay phone. Also look at the practicality of giving your loved ones a card that enables them to watch their favourite tv programmes/sports/films etc rather than taking them a bowl of fruit in. And no, I do not have any vested interest in Patientline whatsoever. Just an element of realism.

Gingham_Ribbon

spook wrote:

[*]I think that the outgoing charges of 10p/minute are fairly reasonable, and (I believe) cheaper than calling from a payphone - correct me if I'm wrong.

I was in hospital last week and the phone in the corridor was much cheaper than the patientline one.

Further, I didn't understand the instructions and thought I was paying for 24 hours of tv viewing - for me to decide when, rather than £3.50 for an hour's worth of telly as I didn't realise it would charge me for the next 24 hours - most of which time I was fast asleep.

The amount it costs to phone one of these is an utter disgrace and it sickens me that people are unable to call sick relatives due to the prohibative cost. 49p a minute?! No way is that acceptable.

labman_3

**Important way to cut Patientline phone calls**

Martin's UK Callchecker lists big discounts for the 070 'Personal' numbers that Patientline uses. The cheapest is 9p/min and perhaps the simplest are the ones that just require dialling 0911 501 3030 or 0911 501 4040 before the Patientline number and cost just 15p/min.

As I assume Patientline gets the same 'cut' of the phone call no matter what, it would appear BT is making a lot of money out of these calls

I have to say that I haven't tried the above to call someone in hospital, so I'd be interested if anyone can confirm this works!

krisskross

When I was nursing the television sets were an absolute menace. Trailing leads and the stands they were on caused more than the odd accident. It gets very crowded round a patient's bed and to have to get it all out of the way if there is an emergency takes up valuable time. If there must be personal TVs they should be wall mounted.

DrFluffy

I've lost count of the number of times I've almost decapitated myself on !!!!!!! patientline screens though...

sluggy1967

My husband is seriously ill and in and out of hospital a lot, having a 3yr old son who is not allowed to see his dad and with no family nearby it is sometimes very difficult for me to get in to visit him (plenty of great friends, but they work and have other commitments) so patientline was sometimes the only way for me to speak to him, although as we have been told by a Consultant friend that mobiles are used all the time by doctors and other staff members he now rings me on his mobile and speaks (quietly, under the sheets - people must wonder what's going on!!!) or texts me. He leaves his mobile on silent so it doesn't disturb anyone. According to my Consultant friend they tell you not to use mobiles because otherwise they would be going off all the time disturbing people.