TVs in hospital: £10 a day!

MarkBargain

Ellejmorgan wrote: »

No that's wrong I found the info under Portsmouth Hospital....
The £10 is for 2 days, its £40 for 20 days...

They have bought it 12 hourly to make it cost £10 and website clearly states over 25 channels...
Google hospedia prices or entertainment and it's there...

Like i said last time I was in hospital I paid £20 for 5 days and had all channels except the extra movie ones & free calls

I am not wrong, as I was using one of the TVs in hospital myself a few days ago and looked it up live on screen. Maybe the Portsmouth Hospital website is out of date or they have local pricing.

Most hospital websites points to the Hospedia website for prices, but I can't see prices anywhere on there. I did find the following:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hospital-patients-charged-10-a-day-690756

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/yourtown/oxford/9569085.The_price_of_hospital_TV_is_making_us_sick/

mumps

mynameistallulah wrote: »

The costs of administering such a scheme (initial outlay, customer support, maintenance etc) would outweigh the benefits to the patient and the Trust - this was investigated when PL was first awarded the contract.

If grandad wants to be stubborn, I don't see what more you can do. When my grandmas were in we just activated the service for them, and the next time we went in they were happily watching their soaps!

It is nice that you could do this for your grandma. I visited someone in hospital, someone I know a little through work and offered to drop some stuff off for them. He was on benefits and when I asked if he used the TV he explained the costs, he had enough money for 2 hrs and was saving it for the Saturday night. I went and bought him a card, I think it was for 3 days. I felt so sorry for someone who was unable to get out of bed and was going to be in hospital for weeks.

paddyrg

Alas I don't have the time to compose a proper reply with detail now, but the current units are IPTV, not distributed over the air or RF signal, but multicast like mini computers - incompatible with freeview, so it is either a fresh infrastructure spend or buying the existing infrastructure from the incumbant provider (who paid for it in the first place at their own risk). Unsure about the individual contract details you refer to, a FOI for what exactly was covered in the deal could be interesting!

I maintain that it is more expensive to install and manage a reliable, supported network, and provide the maintenance and billing for it in a cash-light environment like a ward than the headline figures of a cheap TV from Argos suggests. Hey, if nothing else, there are the TV licensing/PRS/PPL problems to work out - that stuff costs!

I am not actually saying it wouldn't be great for each patient to have their own free TV, radio, internet etc. In fact it is a great idea. I am not even going to try to justify the cost of a tenner a day (although I suspect there are price breaks for multiple days), the market for what it is will find its own level if people don't use them at that price. As for health benefits, clearly unproven, but you could be right for all I know. In fact Mark we probably agree about almost everything except the cost of putting in a competing solution, and who should be apying for that. I see this as exactly the kind of thing to outsource - radio is free, so it is only the luxury of TV, and I don't want healthcare money spent on luxuries, or even spent on trying to create a competing system which may make at best a few thousand per hospital profit, at worst, sink a lot of resources.

In most hospitals in this world, even in most prisons in this world, the patient or inmate has to find/pay for their own meals. We are softened here. Universal free healthcare is incredible, I back the NHS totally, I believe in the imperfect dream. If the TV scheme was a /guaranteed/ risk and capita-free moneyspinner for the NHS, i'd be right there behind it - but the fact the margins work out to pence per bed pretty much by definition proves that it is expensive to operate these systems, so my belief is let private industry bear the risk, and if there is a reward then fine, it is between the patient and that company to strike a deal over time how much the costs should be, but the moment you speculate/risk a single nurses worth of money you'll have to fight your way past me ;-)

MarkBargain

Thanks paddyrg, you are clearly knowledgeable on the topic. I know where you are coming from on the private sector taking the risk, although we did hear that with PFI deals and look what has happened with those!

I think there is nearly universal agreement that £10 is a rip-off and, although there are longer term deals which work out at a lower daily rate, many patients do not know how long they will be in there. A solution needs to be found somehow, otherwise it could be a matter of time before prices go up again as has happened frequently with hospital car parks. It is a captive audience and no one likes the sick being exploited.

dizziblonde

PasturesNew wrote: »

There were no TVs in the ward my parent was in for a month over Xmas/New Year. Couldn't have made alternative arrangements at all as my parent didn't even have their own marbles to play with.

It must be difficult as patients are moved randomly - and you've no idea how long you'll be in. My parent was only in 3 different beds during their stay, but it could have been more.

The bed moving thing I didn't find to be a bother really - I moved bed three times, just rang them and they transferred my telly time over within 5 minutes. The not knowing if you're going to be in for long enough to justify buying the more extended package and saving some money thing was a real pain in the neck.

hcb42

there is a lot more to the cost structure than a few tvs. I agree I dont think the NHS should be getting involved in a project of this size.

Given patientline went bust some years ago, it's not the best business model, and would not appear to be a licence to print money (although I think it was a disaster from the start, once had an interview with them as well!). Of course, it wasnt that long ago when there was one TV per ward!

Gleek

Strangely enough after posting yesterday I found THIS whilst sorting things at my grandad's earlier if it interests anyone. It's from May this year.

paddyrg

It may vary location to location, but that suggests a tenner a day rate for the place in question included the premium movies, web, phone calls option, the TV only option was £3.50. Possibly in distress relatives may just press the first button they see and get the 'big' bundled package for 24h whereas there may be other more appropriate options. I may well do that in fact as an easy choice with a loved one just admitted and needing to make an easy decision!

phoneguy

Quite bizarre. If you are sent to prison, you'll find a TV in almost every cell. Typically they charge prisoners 50p a week for all the freeview channels.

Methinks something ain't right with the balance here..........

MarkBargain

paddyrg wrote: »

It may vary location to location, but that suggests a tenner a day rate for the place in question included the premium movies, web, phone calls option, the TV only option was £3.50. Possibly in distress relatives may just press the first button they see and get the 'big' bundled package for 24h whereas there may be other more appropriate options. I may well do that in fact as an easy choice with a loved one just admitted and needing to make an easy decision!

The £3.50 is only for 2 hours of channels 1 to 5 though. Once you activate the credit you can't stop the clock ticking, so you can't watch an hour programme at 1pm and another one at 7pm, the credit would just run 1pm to 3pm.

I note too on the leaflet the previous posted scanned in that the 'mini bundle' of 5 channels jumps from £5 for 12 hours to £45 for 30 days. That's hardly user friendly, is it?!