Sick Phone Charges On The NHS Patientline
IT seems as though the nation’s “entrepreneurs” will do whatever it takes to squeeze every last penny out of the old and the infirm.
Following the recent furore over extortionate car parking charges at NHS hospitals, bedside phone services are now to rise in price by an incredible 160%, according to the BBC.
Private telecommunications company Patientline, who provide a large proportion of hospital bedside phones, have decided to increase the cost of calls from 10p per minute to a whopping 26p per minute.
The company themselves have, not surprisingly, defended the increases, claiming that the rises will allow them to significantly drop the cost of their more popular bedside TV packages.
However, Patients Association spokesman Michael Summers was fuming. Says he: “These people are ill, often recovering from operations, and the hike from 10p to 26p to phone out is really too much. People are going to be really upset with this.”
Two years telecoms regulator Ofcom launched an investigation into Patientline over high charges and although nothing came of it then, the company may well face more scrutiny now.
Posted: 4th, April 2007 | In: Money Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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August 8th, 2007 at 9:58 am
[...] four months have passed since Patientline, the hospital phone and TV services company, decided to increase the cost of its calls by a massive 160%. But now, the firm have decided to do an almighty U-turn and cut the costs of its calls again. In [...]
May 29th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
As a member of Patienline staff of nearly 5 years I agree with most of what Bleeper writes. Like me the view from the front line is different to head office. I know what the customer wants. Head office clearly do not. Thousands spent on marketing can be undone by bad publicity on the BBC.
I need to point out that the system does not take 40p unless it connects - either a person or answering machine answers.
I can confirm that our head office are out of touch with reality and live in cloud cuckoo land. They have the insane idea that they can market themselves out of trouble. Trouble is good marketing must be clever but intelligence is sadly lacking at head office.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Patienline is a company with a huge problem created by an ill thought out plan by ‘Labour’ back in 1997. The problem now is that sick people particularly old sick people are having to pay for the mistakes of politicians and over paid company executives who have badly got their sums wrong.
Patientline are not making huge profits from Patients, they are not that clever. The company’s shares are currently valued at less than 2p (and still falling) and the company is making huge losses. The Chairman of Patienline, the hard pressed Geoff White admited recently that the company can not survive any longer than 12 months on current performance.
Poorly paid Patientline staff work under conciderable ’sales target’ pressure and with equipment that is mostly not fit for purpose.
So what did Patienline’s Directors and Managers do last week ? They make matters worse, a lot wores in fact and announced a‘restructruturing’ of prices which will cost sick people more.
The recent botched ‘restructuring’ of the prices of their products includes the abolition of the reduced rate for patients over 65, who will now have to pay the full daily rate of £2.90 increased from £1.70.
Amazingly, Patientline also increased the price of outgoing calls from the bedside from 10p per min to 26p and introduced a minimum call charge of 40p (previously 20p) for outgoing calls which is charged regardles of whether an outgoing call is answered or not. The press release issued by Patienline last week was very enconomical with the truth. The slating of Patientline in both local and national newspapers last week was due to the huge increase in prices for outgoing telephone calls.
Perhaps after all the company was trying to be clever and force the Department of Health to pay a subsidy to keep prices down. Maybe, but Patientline clearly underestimated the hate that patients and NHS staff feel towards the company; which is evidence of how out of touch Patrientline’s directors are.
So long as prisoners in the nations over crowded prisions receive, as a right, free TV and yet sick people have to pay for their TV viewing there will be, understandably, lots of unhappy patients.
Only Politicians can put that right. Howvever, so long as Patientline operate with insensitivity, faulty equipment they will continue to to be critisised.
Is there any wonder that Patienlines staff sickness levels are so high we are trying to give a good service under great pressure.
‘Bleeper’ - A member of Patientline Staff.