DC wrote on Dec 28^th, 2005 at 2:53am:
I'm afraid this is not always true about radio channels being free to watch because the hospitals I've been in (thank god only visiting) the radio hasn't been available.  With the exception of a few channels the majority of channels available are actually FTV (free-to-view) anyhow.

Now Patientline may currently be making a loss but this is normal when starting a business with such high initial outgoing costs.  Sky, o2 and many, many other companies made a loss at first but now they are making a (huge) profit - especially Sky.

The problem with Patientline is that they obviously want their money back but they could make this back overtime without charging over the odds on TV and incoming calls which the cheapest being 39p/min (off-peak) from a BT landline and more from most other telco's - similar to what Sky and o2, etc have had to do.

Now o2 had competition so they obviously couldn't charge over the odds and Sky has a little (I do mean little) competition from cable companies but Patientline have NO competition whatsoever for the next 15 years and going by recent news it appears Patientline have even had it in their contracts with the hospitals (possibly some but not sure) that they HAVE to remove the existing TV's.  Why did Patientline insist on this in their contract?  The only conclusion I come to is to force those few patients that going in the waiting room to watch TV and force them (providing they want to watch TV) to pay the £3.50.  I realise they are not forcing patients to watch TV but they know what else is there to do in a hospital except watch TV?

Lets do a quick comparison on costs based on an unfortunate person in hospital for only 5 days:-

5 days @ 3.50 per day is £17.50 for only the 5 days.

I, at home, pay Sky just over £20 per month for all channels except the premium channels like Movies (always repeats anyhow) and Sports (go the pub) so immediately they are gaining a lot from this £3.50 which is then topped-up by the incoming calls of at least 39p/min.

The obvious point, as pointed out in previous posts, is that the Patientline 15year deal is completely and totally uncompetitive and restrictive and what happens with companies that have no competition?  Simply they can do and charge what they like without very little recourse.

Eventually, just as Sky and o2 etc did, then Patientline will be out of debt but do you really think or expect them to reduce their TV to a more reasonable level or use a lower costing incoming call number other than 07 personal number?  Answer is NO, again simply because there would be no competition/reason for them to do so.

One could also ask why did Patientline choose a 07 personal number and not a premium rate 09x number?  Simply to avoid having to abide by ICSTIS guidelines which are meant to be for our protection and also because it is perfectly reasonable for a not-so-knowledgable person to think that a number beginning 07 is a mobile number and therefore included in any inclusive packages or at a more reasonable rate.  They only tell you about the 49p/min cost on the cards at the hospitals but how many patients when giving the number out (especially older patients) are going to mention to whomever they are giving the number to that it costs 50p/min?

If patientline were forced to use 09x which they should if they wanted to continue to charge this much because then when people ring they would be reminded that they are paying 49p/min which would make people very wary of ringing the number.  To avoid all this Patientline have sneakily used a 07 number and gaining revenue from it which under normal circumstances revenue sharing is prohibited but Patientline used a loophole so as to still gain the revenue but without the added protection and consumer awareness of 09x numbers which they should have used.

DC wrote on Dec 31^st, 2005 at 1:30am:


Actually it is clearly you who do not understand and the fact that the Patientline equipment means that your sad little radio station (which I am sure is of very poor quality indeed and most patients other than the usual C2DE suspects will undoubtedly not enjoy) can be listened to for free in almost every bed means that your judgement has been warped about people being asked to pay £24.50 per week or £1,278 for watching television in their hospital bed.

I was basing my figures on the likely revenue take on each unit based on 365 x £3.50 minus say 20% bed non occupancy or patient non uptake.  If the non uptake rate in occupied beds is much higher than this it is clearly because the daily television price is too high.  £3.50 a day is the price one would expect to pay in a profit making hotel for an adult movie and they usually offer standard television for free.

Clearly you love Patientline and their unreasonable £3.50 per day charge because as it is so high patients won't pay it and end up listening to your boring little hospital radio station because it is free.  So you like the Patientline system because it forces people to listen to your ghastly little radio station to avoid being ripped off for telly.

If Patientline are paying £1,000 per bedside station installation clearly they are incompetent businessmen as with this high density volume of installations and the current cost of technology there is no way it should cost more than £500 per bed to install one of these systems and pay for the equipment.  But then perhaps the installation company is run by another business connection of Mr Derek Lewis and/or perhaps he also has shares in the company carrying out the equipment installation?  If Patientline are so inefficient that their installation costs really are £1,000 per bed they certainly deserve to go out of business.

As for buying a phone card for people in the hospital to call me why would I want to go to all that inconvenience just to make a simple phone call so they can call me at £6.00 per hour on a phone call that would have cost me 3p per hour if they had a normal incoming phone number starting 01 or 02.  I think the Patientline rate drops to 37p per minute off peak to call in.  Wow £22.20 an hour so a real bargain then!

You were also very wrong on outgoing Patientline calls being cheaper than a BT Payphone but again conveniently duck those facts.

...I know that if I was in hospital I would take my free 1 hour of television a day and then listen to BBC Radio Four and anything else worthwhile from the outside world that was on offer....

Lewis points out that few complaints have actually been received by Ofcom.

Don't know anything about Patientline apart from its phone charges/rental, but is it one of these companies that has appeared over night? The website says that the first 'services' were installed in 1995, so about 10 years then.