Patient Line is a disgusting disgrace Blog Discussion

Steven1153

JamesDB wrote:

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.

that won't be happening for a while i'm afraid: Patientline has a contract with all the hospitals that they have installed units in for at least another 5years or so now so you can bet your bottom dollar that nothing new will be coming out any time soon

Kaz2904

I have to say that these televisions and phones are an absolute nightmare from a professionals viewpoint. They are incredibly difficult to manouvre and put away. When they have been tightened up they are too stiff to move otherwise they just fall down all the time bashing people on the heads and knocking over vases. They get tangled up in the dripstands and people sit with the screen in front of their face all day. There is much less patient interaction since these systems have been introduced which prolongs healing time as patients get no real person contact. It becomes very difficult for nursing staff to communicate with a patient while they are doing their drug rounds as patients won't even take off there headphones or often even acknowledge the fact that you are standing there talking to them. I work nights on a cardiac ward so the beginning of my shift incorporates going round and clearing a path to each and every bed space. We shift tables and tvs away. Patients always complain about this but at the end of the day when your heart stops suddenly you don't need to be waiting 5 minutes for nurses to get your blasted telly out of the way because you'll be dead by then. They can stop nurses from picking up on other cues about a patients condition because they are isolated and sat behind a screen. If a patient is unwell then we would ask a caller to ring back later to speak to them rather than waking them but if the phone is by their bed they wake from their much needed sleep anyway. We are no longer allowed to have a ward television so staff have nothing to do either at break times during the night. Patients are being charged £3.50 a day to watch tv which is appalling. Ban the lot of them!!!

ILikeFreebies

During the last 6 months my Grandmother, sister, wife and father have been in hospital. I think the charges for patientline are outrageous. I really hope patientline go under, as their finanicial performance indicates. The outgoing call charges are bearable but the incoming ones are disgusting. I've only made one call into a patienline number, I got so angry about the call cost and the length of the recorded message. The message seems to be designed to last as long as possible, a computer voice which says the patients name sssooo ssslllooowwwlllyyy (TWICE!) and telling you the customer services number at a fractionally faster speed. The cost of TV, £3.50 per day, makes SKY look like great value for money. I had to spend a day in hospital with my son when he was 2 weeks old, I felt really guilty every time somebody called because it was so expensive.

When my son was delivered, a midwife told us that all TVs were removed from the birthing rooms when patientline was installed, even though the midwives didn't want it. The system gets in everybody's way, I tried to push it against the wall as high up as possible but it still kept flopping down.

My two top patientline tips are:

1. There is a customer survey on the system (under 'other services' or something similar). Use it to tell them how bad you think the system is.
2. If you pay with a card you have to put on £5 credit (or so I was told), the remainder of which would be refunded when you leave the bed. When you leave the bed DO NOT just use the automated 'I'm leaving the bed' option. I did this but was concerned that there was no mention of a refund. I then called the customer services from the unit and found out that the refund is not automatic, though they did the refund straight away. I wonder how much money they've made from people not calling for the refund.

Hope this helps sombody.

Spleen vented.

steveeeee

Not entirely relevant, but I applied for a technical support job with PatientLine back in 2003. The concept and my initial impression of the technology they were using was very exciting, but I was put off by a few things:

1) The idea that they were preying on a captive audience. Of course PatientLine needs to cover their costs, and yes there are some alternatives (payphone - which costs more for outbound calls, personal portable TV, mobile phone if the ward allows it) but not everyone has access to these. And the high cost for inbound calls, TV, and internet access was a surprise.

2) Even back then, the demo unit that I was shown (the shiny internet-enabled one) looked old and knackered. The build quality didn't seem to be particularly good.

3) I had assumed that the units used VOIP and TCP/IP for the voice and internet technology, and possibly even video over IP for the TV signal. When I asked, my interviewer laughed and said "oh no, everything is sent via radio". I can't remember now if that included the TV signal or if that part was sent some other way, but the thought of all that extra RF traffic around the hospital worried me when everybody was still insisting that mobile phone usage was a Very Bad Thing in hospitals.

4) After I made it clear what my salary expectations were (which were in line with the advertised salary for the job) and that it wouldn't be worth me changing jobs for anything less, they offered me the job but took the p!!! with a 10% lower offer.

NB this was a few years ago and they may well have updated the technology. Mind you, digital terrestrial TV broadcasting started in 1998 in the UK, so PatientLine could quite feasibly have been doing MPEG2 streaming over IP in 2003.

I have no idea how much each bedside unit costs, but I'd be surprised if it was more than £100-£200. A large part of the cost will be in infrastructure at each site: routers, servers, connectivity to the outside world, and especially initial setup, and ongoing support.

Fran

I can't see the logic in making a charge that many patients simply won't pay. I've just visited someone and he would not pay for any of it, the phone out was I think 40p per minute. When I was enquiring about his condition I phoned the ward direct and was able to speak to him, this is only of use if a patient is mobile enough to get to the phone and also if they are not busy etc. If the phone out had not been so expensive he would certainly have used it to phone family and friends. He had no interest in the TV as there would only be limited programmes that interested him.

robby-01

patientline is expensive but a million times better than what went before.At least this way there is a choice

ILikeFreebies

robby-01

What choice do you have? Don't watch TV/speak to family and friend or get charge over the odds. I'll have to disagree with you, it's a 10 times worse (a million seems a bit of an exageration even if it wasn't so expensive). £3.50 to watch free-to-air TV just isn't on in my book.

robby-01

Thats my point before patientline what was there.
A pay phone on the ward .[I think most still have them} and a knackered ferguson tv in a smokey day room(still got day room now without the smoke}
So my point is that while it is expensive it is better than what went before.

People go into hospital to get better.
I know that tv ,phone,radio etc all add to the patients comfort but so would a kingsize divan bed and we dont expect everyone to get one of those do we.
I would love to see hospitals made more comfortable with every home comfort made available to patients but with a state funded health system that is not going to happen.

Fran

robby-01 wrote:

People go into hospital to get better.
I know that tv ,phone,radio etc all add to the patients comfort but ......

Easy contact with concerned family and friends would improve everyone's health though. It's not asking for much, you can't compare with "what used to be" all the time, the fact is that in 2007 it should be simple and easy for patients to phone or watch TV and the same for concerned relatives and friends phoning in. Worry and anxiety caused by not being able to contact people is not healthy.

robby-01

I agree with you fran.
But the facts are that the nhs has limited funds and as much of those funds as possible should be directed at medical care.
A tv and a phone dont help people get well they may make there stay in hospital more comfortable but it is the staff and the treatment that they provide that gets them well again.