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However at http://www.patientline.co.uk/inter_loc.asp?ID=332 they do helpfully point out that "If you have any trouble getting connected, call our Customer Care Centre on 0800 959 3100.

If you are outside the UK, our Customer Care Centre can be reached on +44 208 235 0918"

Can anyone here who has an actual friend in hospital at the moment give this a try with Patientline and see if they can get a +44 208 number for an actual patient.  Do you know anyone in hospital at the moment in the UK perhaps idb?  I'm sure Patientline would have a way to tell whether or not you were calling from outside the UK.

The process for calling from overseas was confirmed in a letter I received from Patientline:

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Our only recommendation to bypass this situation which we accept is not ideal, is that the International caller phones 0044 208 235 0918, and pays for telephone time by credit card on behalf of the patient, we can then ask the patient to call out to the International numbers which we do enable on our system. 

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I haven't tried this as I don't know anyone who is ill at the moment!

It has taken me well over half an hour to get the call price information from both BT Payphones and from Vodaphone for a Pay as You Go mobile on their SmartPlus tariff.

Both outfits started off by first demanding that I should know exactly what kind of tariff this number was and when I refused and said I had just been given the number by my friend they kept on trying to make excuses as to why they didn't have the cost.  A couple of transfers later to supervisors who were themselves exceedingly obstructive here are the prices:-

(a) BT Payphones.  Charge a predictably whopping and disgraceful 10p for 6 seconds at all times.  This translates into £1.00 per minute subject to a 30p minimum charge and a 10p connection charge.

(b) Vodafone charge a rather less disgraceful 50p per minute at all times.  This seems remarkably good value given what Patientline charge even on a BT landline (39/49p) and compared to Vodafone's weekday peak charge for 084/7 and 080 numbers of 30p per minute.  Of course I am assuming that the guy at Vodafone actually gave me the right prices.  He probably didn't and its proably 2 quid per minute.

In his prevarication the Vodafone supervisor suggested that tariffs for calling these numbers were not available on their website because it was "commercially sensitive information"!  Yet it doesn't seem to be commercially sensitive to Vodafone's billing computer when it docks my account balance with the cost.

Not only do these people charge obscene prices but they even go out of their way to actively hide the facts of the matter.

I just spoke to the Patientline call centre.

A gentleman called Ryan who I can only describe as ideal future material for training as a suicide bomber told me that it cost 49p peak and 39p off peak to call Patientline no matter how I called, whether from a BT Payphone, a mobile operator or a non BT telco.  He also maintained that Patientline ran its own telco and that was why the price was always the same from wherever you called.

He told me he knew he was right.  He would not accept he could be wrong and he claimed a supervisor was not available.  When I asked if he would also put his hand in a fire if his employers told him it was safe he disconnected the call.

I rang back and asked a more helpful young lady if I could speak to a supervisor.  I reported to the supervisor the nonsense being spouted by Ryan and his refusal to connect a call to a supervisor - he said he would listen to the tape and speak to Ryan.

I then asked about call costs.  He confirmed they were different with every call carrier and the price quoted was only from a BT landline.

Where do they find these little hitlers who work on customer service lines, who have one brain cell and yet who think they know everything.   No wonder Douglas Adams wanted to deport all these customer service people from the planet on the B Ark.

Easymobile charge just 22p a min for calls to personal numbers.

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I wasnt promoting it in the cheapest call sense. I was merely trying to highlight the huge differences in prices to call these numbers.

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It works (as far as I'm aware) by each hospital having its own personal number and when you dial this personal number you then have to enter their patient line customer number (having waited 30seconds until the end of the recorded speech).  If you do not know the patient line customer number of the person you are trying to call you have to speak to an operator and they'll check the records and probably connect you.

You are given the same customer number for any subsequent stays at that hospital.  I'm not sure if you would keep the number if you were admitted to another hospital but I doubt it.

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My guess at the outcome of the Ofcom 'investigation' is that Patientline will have to cease 070 numbering and shift to using 0871 numbers (these, as we know, are relatively high yield without the need for regulation). It will also have to reduce or stop the preamble to the call. Result - still unsatisfactory but Ofcom will be seen to have done something and Patientline will be reasonably happy with the alternative extortion numbers. That's my prediction anyway!