Patientline Revisited

The principle hospital bed-side telecommunications services company in the NHS has gone bust!

I wrote about Patientline several times last year when there was much criticism of their telephone and television charges. In April 2007 they raised their bed-side telephone outgoing charges from 0.10 pounds a minute to 0.26 pounds. Incoming calls were charged at 0.49 pounds a minute. And as I previously pointed out a regular telephone call is 0.03 pounds a minute. The state regulatory authority for telecommunications obliged them to reduce the bed-side outgoing call to 0.10 pounds a minute, but incoming could calls remained at 0.49 pounds a minute.

Patientline TV-viewing services were 3.50 pounds a day.

In spite of their exorbitant charges, the company has run up a debt of £90 million so on Friday last it put itself into"administration" (i.e. bankruptcy).

Good riddance to bad rubbish I say ... but there is a catch.

The creditors (three banks) have moved in, forgiven Patientline £35 million of debt and formed a new company, Hospedia, taking over the Patientline services.

However, it also aims to take over Patientline's only (but smaller) competitor Premier Telesolutions (which also provides bed-side telecommunications solutions),

The Patientline bank consortium, Hospedia, and the backers of Premier Solutions are awaiting the Office of Fair Trading (our trading regulatory organisation) for a decision whether they can cosy up in October.

So a two company market becomes a one company monopoly?

Patientline V

We have posted about the NHS patients' telecomms provider Patientline before most notably in April when they hiked up the prices of making outgoing calls from 10 p per minute to 26 p per minute.

In the face of competition from mobile phones (after a relaxation on their use in hospitals), Patientline has reversed its decision and lowered the price of outgoing calls back to 10 p per minute. Incoming calls will remain at 49 p per minute!

Just for comparison a local call in the UK with the operator British Telecom on a fixed line is 3 p per minute. (BT call calculator here).

Patientline IV

Patientline, the telecomms service provider to patients in NHS hospitals, is in the news again - this time for pressurising patients to sign up for their services.

Patientline III

Lucia tries to draw me into the Patientline debate - I refuse to be drawn!

However, I will make some observations on the Borchardt Ward at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. Each bed has a Patientline terminal and yes, televison for children is free. However, each bed also has a regular donated televison set (with headphones).

Concerning telephone sets there are two regular payphones, one at the entrance to the ward and one in the middle of the ward that accepts both incoming and outgoing calls. Given a relatively relaxed mobile phone policy as well and the fact that the younger children have little need for phone services, then it is little surprise that Patientline will not be making a profit on Borchardt Ward, and I suspect throughout the RMCH.

Patientline II

I really didn't want to get into the Patientline bed-side telephone price-hike debate - my original post on Patientline was not about this, but rather about electronic medical records.

However, in the light of professional medical opinion that mobile phone use in hospitals should be relaxed (that we reported here), of continuing cuts in government spending on the National Health Service, and the trend towards the privatisation of NHS services, it is both interesting and ironic to note that in their Announcement of the results for the year ending 31st March 2006, two of the "challenges" facing the company are

• Ward closures and an increasing number of empty beds have reduced the number of terminals being used.
• The relaxation by some trusts of their policy regarding the use of mobile phones within hospitals, despite concerns relating to patient privacy (especially given the photographic capability of most modern mobile phones) and to the intrusion into what should be a quiet environment, has also affected performance.
  

Electronic Medical Records

Dr Crippen has written several times about the government's £6.8 billion pound initiative to put everybody's medical records on a centralised national computer system (for example, here and here). I feel he is right to be concerned.

Today I read that the private telecomms operator Patientline is raising the prices of its telephone services for patients in many UK hospitals by 160%! I won't criticise them for providing bedside television to the under-16s for free but ...

However, that is not what this post is about ... as a result of the above story I visited Patientline's website and found that they offer a range of other telecomms services to the NHS Trusts including keeping electronic patient records that can be consulted at the patient's bedside. No mention here of data protection and security. I wonder if any of the PCTs have taken up the service

John - we have every reason to be concerned at the Spine, but having my medical records held electronically by a private company that is £80 million in debt is perhaps even more scary!