http://www.patientline.co.uk/downloads/28_09_07_trading_update.pdf

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RNS Number:7169E Patientline PLC 28 September 2007 For Immediate Release 28 September 2007 Patientline plc (the "Company") Trading Update The Board reports that the anticipated and historically seen seasonal upturn in trading during September has not yet materialised. In addition to the already challenging operating environment, the recent instruction by OFCOM, whereby a message is played to callers to 0700 numbers at the start of calls informing them of the maximum potential cost of the call, seems to have been a major factor in reducing incoming call revenues. The OFCOM decision, which took effect from 1st September 2007, has the misleading effect of telling callers of the maximum cost per minute of an 0700 call rather than the actual Patientline cost which is always lower and often significantly lower. As a result, revenues so far in September are materially below expectations. If the current revenue trends continue then the liquidity position of the Company will become increasingly tight towards the end of this calendar year. For this reason the Board, as stated previously, continues to be in constructive discussions with its banks with regards to restructuring its balance sheet in advance of this time.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=5069...

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20p to spend a penny, £4 to see a church and a fortune to call a sick relative. What a mean-spirited nation we've become!
Like thousands of Britons, I have a relative in hospital. Because the hospital is a long way from where I live, I am forced to rely a lot on the Patientline bedside phone service installed by most NHS trusts.

And in this I have discovered an unpleasant little fact that illustrates nicely, I believe, a plague that is spreading across this country.

This is not a wave of crime, drugs or bingedrinking, but an epidemic of what can only be termed mean-spiritedness - the hugelyunpleasant mindset that is seeping into so many aspects of life today.

Patientline is the private company that won a contract with the Department of Health to provide telephone and television services to patients' bedsides.

It is notorious for its exorbitant charges and for the devious little trick of contractually forcing NHS trusts to forbid patients from using their own mobile phones, allegedly because the signals interfere with hospital equipment, although there is no scientific evidence to support this.

This is well-known. But rather less well-known is another nasty little rip-off, which is the recorded message that callers to a bedside phone have to listen to.

Phone a Patientline number and you would expect to get connected to the patient. Oh no.

First, you have to listen to a long preamble concerning the charges. Then you are put through to another preamble, carefully worded, by a fruity actorish voice, and clearly crafted to be as long-winded as possible.

This whole process takes, I timed it, some 85 seconds. An irritating waste of your time, but it's more than that. The truth is you have to pay for the privilege of hearing how much you are paying for your call. This is the equivalent of being charged to enter a shop.

How has it been allowed to happen? According to Patientline, the message is there because of "customer demand". I asked the company to supply me with evidence of this - testimonials, emails or surveys.

Unsurprisingly, Patientline could provide me with no documentary evidence that their "customers" (the entrapped, hapless victims of a monopoly trying to speak to their friends and relations in state-run hospitals) "demanded" to be charged to listen to a recorded message at all.

I then turned to Ofcom, Britain's telecommunications watchdog, the body that is supposed to protect the public from scams like this.

Its response was that it used to be the case (between September and December last year) that for 070 numbers, the recorded message informing callers of charges was both compulsory, under Ofcom rules, and free.

Then, "to prevent issues with burglar alarm systems", this requirement was dropped.

No, I didn't understand their explanation as to how this could possibly affect burglar alarms, either.

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http://www.thisishampshire.net/news/hampshirenews/display.var.1982401.0.hospital...

Hospital phone service branded 'tax on the sick'
By Maheesha Kottegoda

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A CARER has branded a phone service a "tax on the sick" after she was left with a hefty bill following her mother's stay in hospital.

Alison Ransom said she was she shocked to receive the £79 bill for calls made by her mother Rachel through the Patientline service at Southampton General Hospital.

With premium rate charges of up to 49 pence a minute at peak times the cost of the calls quickly escalated.

Alison, who cares for her 75-year-old mum at their home in Heather Road, Fawley, said: "Our dad died in hospital last year so it was important for us to reassure mum while she recovered from her hip replacement operation.

"When the bill came through I laughed as I could not believe it.

"This was her lifeline to the family and I think Patientline exploited that to make money. It's disgusting.

"Patientline has too much of a hold on patients and the service. If some competition was introduced then maybe it would make it better for the patients."

The 39-year-old, who is herself disabled and claims incapacity benefit, said she was dumbfounded at how twice daily phone calls over five days could have cost so much and is now being forced to transfer the bill to a credit card and pay it off in instalments.

Patientline spokesman David Murphy said the phone charges were necessary to cover the £1,800 cost of buying, installing and maintaining each multimedia Patientline machine.

The service allows patients to choose whether to use the phone, TV, e-mail and computer game facilities while allowing staff to record patient data and take meal orders Mr Murphy said: "Patientline still has a total debt of £90m and our first priority is to resolve this debt. We hope to resolve this in the next financial year then we will be in a position to look at the cost of calls."

Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust was one of the first trusts in the country to introduce the 49p-a-minute peak rate service, which has since been accused of taking advantage of a captive market.

A trust spokesman said: "The Patientline service, which is provided at no cost to the NHS, has operated for many years, allowing patients to make and receive direct dial phone calls from their family and friends, as well as watch TV and listen to the radio.

"The trust is constantly looking at ways of further improving the patient experience across the hospital and, as part of this, holds regular discussions with Patientline about the service provided."
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Comments at http://www.thisishampshire.net/news/hampshirenews/display.var.1982401.0.hospital...

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/03/06/pressure-mounts-to-end...

Pressure mounts to end 49p a minute phone calls in hospitals

Mar 6 2008 by Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail

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CALLS are mounting for expensive hospital telephone charges to be axed in Wales after the Assembly Government scrapped parking fees.

Concerns have been growing about the amount of money it costs patients – and their relatives – to make a call from their hospital bedside.

And some politicians and professionals believe the blanket ban on mobile phones should now be lifted in hospitals to give patients an alternative to the expensive Patientline system used in five Welsh hospitals.

Health Minister Edwina Hart announced on Monday that hospital parking charges would be phased out from April this year, ending what many believe is a “stealth tax” on illness.

Lynne Neagle, Labour AM for Torfaen, said, “It has been scientifically proven that it is entirely safe to use mobile phones in almost all areas of a hospital.

“Add this to the fact that systems like Patientline can cost 49p a minute and we can see another example of charging that will impact most on the long-term sick and the most vulnerable people in Wales.

“While lifting an outright ban on mobiles will need careful implementation not to impact on patient privacy, steps must be taken to remove another unnecessary financial burden on patients.”

Patientline is used in five Welsh hospitals – the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, Royal Gwent, Newport, Nevill Hall, Abergavenny, Llandudno Hospital and Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor.

It provides bedside access to a telephone and television. Phone calls cost patients 10p a minute to make, but calls to the bedside cost 39p a minute off peak and 49p a minute during week days. A day’s television card costs between £2.90 and £3.50, depending on which system a hospital is using.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency does not recommend a blanket ban on the use of mobiles in hospitals.

But it advises that mobile phones should not be used in critical care areas, such as intensive therapy units, special care baby units or where patients are attached to complex devices, because of the risk that radio waves may upset medical equipment.

Dr Richard Lewis, Welsh secretary of the British Medical Association, said, “Patients should not be punished financially at the very time they need to keep in touch with their friends and relatives.

“It would seem from the MHRA’s recent research that it would be possible to identify areas in hospitals where patients could use their mobile phones safely and avoid the excessive costs as an unnecessary and deplorable burden on patients.

“Easing the blanket ban on the use of mobile phones would also enable better communication between doctors, which would be good news to patients ultimately because it would mean better use of doctors’ time.”

And Peter Johns, director of the Board of Community Health Councils in Wales, said, “There are issues about mobile phones being a disturbance – if they can be used then I believe that there should be a clear indication that they are only used on silent.

“Patientline is a contracted service and most trusts will have signed a deal for several years.

“There is also the issue that if you take the phone away, you will also lose the television facility – we don’t really want to go back to having a large television at the end of a ward that everyone will have to listen to and watch.”

A spokesman for Patientline said, “Patientline is always looking to make patients’ stay in hospital easier by providing some of the entertainment and communication choices they enjoy at home, including offering calls from a hospital bed from 10p.

“As a private company we subsidise children’s wards to provide free television and we would be delighted if the Government could allow for subsidy of the telephone service too.”

A spokesman for the Welsh Assembly Government said, “There is a One Wales commitment to reform hospital phone charges and an announcement will be made on this matter in due course.”
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http://www.independent.co.uk/money/invest-save/james-daley-the-sickening-cost-of...

James Daley: The sickening cost of a hospital service

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I was reminded what a rip-off hospital entertainment systems are this week, when my mother was taken ill for a few days. Although it's great for patients to have bedside phones and televisions, the cost of using them is extortionate. For people making calls to patients in the hospital, the prices are even higher.


To call from a landline, it costs 39p a minute off-peak and 49p a minute on-peak (and much more from a mobile) – and there's no way of escaping paying for at least a two-minute call, as you're forced to listen to a lengthy introductory message. It's such a blatant scam that if I wasn't so angry every time I used the service, I would have found it quite funny. First of all, the recorded message is spoken in an unnecessarily slow voice – a bit like playing a 45rpm record at 33rpm (apologies for the rather outdated analogy). Secondly, the message includes useless tips such as "Please remember that the person you are calling may be with medical staff or have difficulty reaching the phone, so please be patient."

It should be up to the caller to decide how many rings they hang on for before giving up. The reason they want you to wait as long as possible, of course, is that by the time the phone starts ringing, you're already being charged by the minute.

I imagine that the reason these systems are so expensive is that the NHS had nothing much to do with them. A private company – Patientline – developed and installed the systems, and claimed that the reason it was charging so much was because it needed to recoup these initial costs. This may be so – but surely they could have charged less, and recouped their costs more slowly. As it stands, they are exploiting families when they are at their most vulnerable.

Bizarrely – in spite of milking their users for tens of pounds every day – Patientline went bust at the start of last year, and was bought out by another company, Hospedia, run by a former Vodafone executive who has promised to slash call charges. So far, however, there's no sign of these services being any better value than they were under their former ownership.

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