Do you have any clue what the new phone call price will be for incoming calls.  Wouldn't there be huge advantages to moving to 10p per minute 0871 combined with a big marketing campaign to promote that the service was now relatively affordable (if not exactly a bargain).

Anything using 07 and pence per minute advance price announcements is surely doomed to failure?
None of our business- the new owners will decide what they want to do, and they have no reason to share it with us.

Stoday wrote on Dec 6^th, 2007 at 1:39am:

People on trains use mobiles, not Patientline phones. People generally talk much louder on mobiles. Patientline phones don't have the 'hilarious' ring tones, and the ring is much less loud than on most mobiles. If disturbance is an issue for you, the Patientline phones clearly have the advantage.

On the contrary, lots of people want the service to go bust and disappear - you can find most of them in the course of this thread As a matter of principle they would much rather that patients stared at the wall all day, and those in hospital for longer than their mobile battery would last, and those who prefered not to risk their mobile being stolen whilst in hospital, should have no means of making calls from or receiving calls at their bed, rather than have the option of paying for these services.

Well each to their own, but to say no TV or phone service at all is preferable seems madness to me - some people appreciate it very much! But it's irrelevant anyway, total collapse was never an option - too politically embarassing for labour, and the service makes good money day to day.  Collapse would mean no debt, but still a profitable niche market to be filled by someone else.

And anyway, people here just want to see a better cheaper service, not no service at all!  And that is what they are going to get, in the end.

None of the NHSs would be obliged to provide any replacement. The NHS [England] would say that it is up to PCTs to decide what to do, and whether to do it (from their existing funding).

Again, theoretically - but no of course they wouldn't be obliged to, but I imagine they would.  It was never going to come to this though, so no matter.

NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 6^th, 2007 at 10:26pm:

You should have had some kind of bet on it!

NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 5^th, 2007 at 3:05pm:

Hate to teach you grannies to suck eggs, but hasn't this lot gone off topic?

DonQuixote wrote on Dec 7^th, 2007 at 9:06am:


This was just a comment on the behaviour of another major hypocrit in the ranks of the New Labour establishment made in passing.

Meredith Hughes has only been so keen to promote the "Speed Kills" lies because he is a careerist toady and he knows by spouting this rubbish he will curry favour with New Labour politicians and so continue to advance up the career ladder.

How can a policeman who maintains motorists should be found guilty of speeding even where the police fail to apply the law correctly continue to hold his job as Chief Constable when he now turns out to think that there is one law for him and one law for everybody else.  Why is this any different from him being found in posession of cannabis when he would have had to resign from the Police force.

Answer because in reality a speeding ticket is seen as a minor administrative matter like a parking ticket by public opinion but if so why does plod and the government keep pretending it is a serious criminal offence?

NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 1^st, 2007 at 7:29pm:

To the best of my knowledge the charges are limited in the contracts, and the cost of calls to patients have only gone down since the earliest systems were deployed. However, a major flaw in the arrangement is that when Patientline is breach of a contract there's virtually nothing that can be done about it.

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At the time the charge for incoming calls was set (at 50p per minute at all times) it did not seem excessively high. The charges have to be seen in context of the time - phone calls generally cost more than they do now, especially in real terms - there were no discounts and inclusive calls schemes, and it was a facility that had never been available before, so it seemed reasonable to have to pay a premium rate for it. The perception at that time was that the cost was high but not overly so. The charge for outgoing calls was around 10% less than on BT payphones which was the only means of contact up to that time. Any negative press coverage during the first few years of Patientline's operation was centered around hospital staff's objection to the principle of systems being run for profit (or not, as it turns out), rather than by the NHS with surplusses being put into the hospital services. But as years went by, phone calls generally became cheaper and discounts and inclusive schemes came along, making Patientline's charges seem higher in comparison. But the Patientline's main costs did not reduce - staff and debt repayment.

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Don't forget that it was at Ofcom's insistance that the wealth warning was introduced. I don't know how long the announcement is now, but there seems to be have been no need for a wealth warning since 1st September. Perhaps the company would say they need to provide an accurate announcement of cost to counter the "misleading" general pre-announcement (on the line I have here, it says "up to 50p per minute or more" (my emphasis), so not very helpful).

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That's easy to say, but how could they have been less expensive? You can't buy hospital bedside TV/phone/internet terminals off the shelf in Dixons. The current price of a flat screen monitor is irrelevant - it doesn't include the PC, the tuner, the phone, the card reader, and the custom software to drive it all. As with all electronic equipment the costs were much higher when the system was first developed a decade and a half ago, and they had to use the technology and materials available at that time. And terminals didn't just plug into handy mains sockets - the hospital had to be cabled up to connect the whole system together, with a control room for the phone exchange and all the other control apparatus, and each terminal installed on the wall along with its PC, and power distribution provided for them all. Even compared to consumer electronics of the time, bedside terminals were a very low volume production item, and they had to be custom designed and developed especially for the hospital enviroment. Newer terminals have been developed and deployed since then, no doubt at lower cost, but development costs are themselves high, so whilst technical advances are rapid, the costs of incoporating them can exceed the savings if changes are made too frequently.

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Again you ignore the costs of installing the unit, cabling infrastructure including r.f. and a safe power supply (ie, not mains), maintenance, and some means of collecting the charge and preventing use by those who don't pay. And I doubt that FTA would be free.

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Yes they could, but most would be watching the "No Signal" message most of the time, as anyone that has tried to use a TV or radio with its own aerial in a hospital ward will tell you. They'd do better to take a portable DVD player. With headphones. And a large supply of batteries. And - in some hospitals - be prepared for it to disappear whilst they're in the bathroom or operating theatre. But that would be the same with a handheld TV.

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Well at the time he left, he owned just under 2% of the issued shares, but he could have sold them since then of course.