My mother had to go into hospital this week (the hospital I still call Southend General but which now has some fancy 'Southend xxxxxxxx University' name).

The bedside equipment was the now omnipresent flat screen, headset etc. - supplied by Premier Bedside.

She was keen to use the free radio service and quickly mastered the touch screen to enable her to do so. 

She then noticed the telephone and, although there was no information available about how much incoming calls would cost, the screen prominently displayed a sign telling users that outgoing local or national calls cost only 10p/minute.  I warned her it was likely that incoming calls (it was an 0700340 number) would cost 49p/minute so she decided to tell everyone she would phone them and refused to publicise 'her' number.

Out of interest, I touched the 'Send free text message' button and quickly found that the button's label was somewhat economical with the truth.  Although it was, indeed, possible to send a free text message, you had no choice of what the message was!  The message (see quote box below) was simply to advise recipients that the patient had a bedside phone and 0700340xxxxx was the number!

That didn't particularly annoy me - until I later picked up the message I sent myself using the facility.

The message read:
Quote:

No mention of the costs and, as readers will know, 0700 calls are not preceded by a cost announcement (that comes after you've been answered by the slow and deliberate recorded message - which costs two call segments (2 x 49p peak rate) to hear.

I had exactly the same message... telling me to ring this number, stupid me rang it to find out my sister had given birth... I was talking to her from my mobile for over 30 mins and had no idea it was robbing 49ppm (probably more) from me! I was outraged because I was not told!!!

After speaking to there customer services, prob in india, they refused to discuss it and said there is leaflets that state the price...

Cant oftel/ofcom or whoever it is do anything about this???

Kev

Patientline critical as rescue plan launched

http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1844132006   (Dec 12, 2006)

<<
Patientline, which today reported a loss of £3.7 million in the six months to September 29, said it had embarked on a business recovery plan which included the closure of its US operations to focus on work in the UK.

It added it was also in talks with a potential buyer for its business in Continental Europe. Patientline said its revenue in the period dropped by £1.3m to £25.1m, while losses widened by £1.5m.

The firm, which has been criticised for its high call charges both to and from hospitals, said it was lobbying the Department of Health to enter into discussions in a bid to reduce call charges.

It said around 50 per cent of Patientline revenue came from incoming phone calls and added the current conditions of contracts it has to supply bedside services to patients meant it needed to charge high prices in order to survive.

[...]

Geoff White, chairman of Patientline, said: "This has been a difficult period for the company and the outlook remains challenging. However, we have embarked on a business recovery plan which is now being implemented.

"The most important issue facing the business is the discussions with the Department of Health about reducing call charges. It is disappointing that these discussions have taken much longer to resolve than expected. Patientline has long wanted to reduce incoming telephone call charges; we are making every effort to resolve this difficult issue."

[...]

>>

Well it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people now could it.

I imagine the Department of Health's strategy is to let them go bust and then let the pieces be picked up another telco who will buy the assets for next to nothing and be able to offer the phone calls for 10p per minute or less.

The final death knell for Patientline will be if the NHS generally rescinds its ban on the use of mobile phones in most parts of NHS hospitals.  They will then have to cut call costs for there to be any chance of anyone using the service.

So it looks like no second yacht or French Chateau for Derick Lewis.  How tragic.

pw4 wrote on Jan 5^th, 2007 at 9:18pm:


Strange how the bumbling NHS management never saw fit to operate this model in their hospitals in the first place.  Still I imagine that the NHS was told that if they allowed their patient's relatives to be scammed for 50p per minute then they would not have to pay for the equipment?

I imagine Patientline's current talks with the NHS are aimed at selling the systems to the NHS outright so that they can decided the acceptable level of call charges to reach patients.  Meanwhile the impoverished relatives of sick patients are still forced to spend say £30 to have an hour talking to them before an operation which they may never come round from.  Talk about legalised extortion!

pw4 wrote on Jan 5^th, 2007 at 10:11pm:


I think they would be prepared to play that game of double bluff rather than allowing Patientline to go on scamming indefinitely.

Quote:


And why do you not anticipate that?  There seems to have been considerable talk elsewhere that this is indeed what may happen.

Didnt notice this thread before, but thought id drop in, as I used to work in the Patientline call centre, they were crooks there as well as in the hospitals, most of the staff in hospital are nice, just overworked, as they have 1-2 staff to cover a whole hospital! and normally theres a chance of 1 off, so 1 person to cover hundreds(or more patients) no wonder patients dont get dealt with, and Patientline refuse to hire more staff.

Anyway, I got £5.05 a hour, started training December 2005, wasnt supposed to finish training till Janurary, but all of a sudden they finished training December 30th for me and loads others, at 4.55pm no less(we finished at 5pm!) and said we all had to work New Years Eve and New Years Day for minimum wage, so I had to work 2pm-11pm 31st December, and walk back a hour walk home(as no buses) and from 9am-6pm New Years Day.

Which should of been illegial as we were only given part time contracts of 4 hours a day, as they refused to give anyone full time contracts, just part time with guaranteed overtime(well in busy months)

Also the crafty thing with this was that they paid overtime a month in arrears and a month with them was the 14th-14th so even though this was classed as overtime I didnt get over my 20 hours pay till the end of Feburary!, where they make profit on my wages.

I was bullied by a fat Miss Piggy/Vicky Pollard lookalike, who was butch, had bleached blonde hair, and threatened everyone and even made threatening and abusive calls to people she didnt like.

Shes still working there now, probably as shes a butt kisser to the managers, though each supervisor knows shes bad as they have had loads of complaints, they wont fire her as they are desperate for staff, even though she also shouts at customers on phone or has even sworn at customers loads of times.

She started her reign of terror against me after I complained about her giving me prank calls, she came up to me, in front of loads of her friends, and said she would kick the **** out of me outside unless I apologised, I said no, and since that day if I sat near her, she moved, and refused to sit near me, or said to people sitting beside me"hey look at that smelly freak, hes an idiot" etc, the funny thing is she wants to be a primary school teacher!

That was one of the reasons I left, other was I was one of the best staff there(I used to get called aside by supervisors who I knew from years ago) who said I was brilliant, and they didnt want me to leave.

But it was messed up, half the Pc's or phones didnt work, and because of that, people queued up to get a PC, and then as they had to queue up missed start of shift, then got shouted at from supervisors for lowering their call handling stats(the supervisors got bonuses depending on our performance)

Put it this way, I got letters each month for the 8 months I was there, saying I was in the top 3 sales, friends or family, or least complaints etc. but the thing was, I made £1.08 bonus for selling £8000 worth of credit in 2 months(maybe more) great commison eh.

Also they were so tight, we had to share headphones, and just got wet wipes to clean them, plus 2 cheap foam things to  make them comfortable, and if you lost them, then you had to pay £12 for replacements(thats the 2 headphone foams which cost like 10p)

Also they forced you to work over, I remember once I logged out 11 seconds before end of shift to be shouted at as I could of taken a call in that time!, and I had to go back on anad spend 10 minutes on 1 call, then I missed last bus back to town because of this, so had to walk back in a storm for 1 hour, I had a bad cold next day!

They just dont care there, all they care about is cash, the supervisors were your best mate when they were off duty or on a break, when working they shouted at you and treated you like dirt(as I say the best team results out of the 4 teams there gave their supervisors a huge bonus each month)

I was shouted at, sworn at, threatened to get bombed(really) wished a typhoon would wash away call centre, got held personally responsible for anything there, and I was always polite, but it was affecting my health and I started to get bad tempered at home due to stress, so I left.

Then the idiots kept calling me saying I hadnt turned up, even though my 4 weeks notice was up, and this went on each day for weeks, until I got a termination letter! and I phoned and was spoken rude to, and they claimed I never handed notice in, yet my team leader, the actual boss of call centre and the admin department all knew I was leaving weeks before I handed in notice and the dates!

They then never gave me a P45 which meant when I signed on for a few weeks I got no cash and lost £400 in housing and JSA as they needed proof of my final wage and how much tax I paid.

I could go on for hours about all the nasty staff there, but obviously wont.

Im proud to say though I went out of my way to help people, which did affect my stats, but to help someone and for them to turn from shouting and swearing to being nice, and recommending me personally to other staff when they phoned to get more credit was great!