The troubled Patientline which supplies an expensive NHS phone and entertainment service in many UK NHS hospitals has cut its call charges despite mounting losses and criticism of its prices and selling tactics. The bedside phone company has reversed its April increase to 26p a minute back to the 10p a minutes rate and reduced the minimum charge cost from 40p to 10p. Friends and family calling into the system from outside will be slugged 49p a minute however.
Many hospitals are now allowing the use of mobile phones and debate continues as to making WiFi Internet and and therefore skype and other voip services available to hospital patients .
Patientline said it had made the changes due to criticism from the telecoms regulator Ofcom and a lower than expected use of its services. Patientline is said to be £80m in debt.
Patientline was such a good idea to start with – but by the time it had been implemented, mobile phones were becoming more and more common and costs had spiralled…. Can’t see how they’re ever going to make a profit! But it’ll cost so much to rip all the equipment out if they go bust… what a mess!
Hello Emma – I can understand why Patientline tried to tie everyone into exclusive long term contracts but they seemed to abuse that position in an attempt to make up losses. Anything built on ‘innovative technology’ is in danger of being overtaken by cheaper technologies quite quickly. It all sounds a bit like Ionica ,the old hexagonal dish based phone system some of us had in the 90′s. The cost of the hardware didn’t see a quick enough return on investment and then the competition undermined them.
Yup, you’re bang on. Playing with ‘state of the art’ in the privacy of your own home is one thing, installing it onto hundreds of hospitals is another… and the hospitals weren’t to know that they were backing the wrong horse I suppose… but they really should never have signed those contracts. I don’t think it could happen now, not to quite such an extent, people are so cautious with telephony after Mercury, Ionica etc…
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