HOSPITAL PHONES_Embattled Patientline cuts cost of calls to 10p per

Hospital bedside console supplier Patientline has reduced its outgoing telephone charges for patients.

People making calls from their bedside will now pay 10p per minute instead of 26p, the company said last week. The minimum call charge has fallen from 40p to 10p.

The move is a reversal of Patientline's earlier decision in April to raise outgoing call costs from 10p a minute to 26p. Following criticism from both patient support and consumer groups, it conceded that this was a mistake.

The cost to relatives and friends of phoning a patient at their bedside stays the same: 49p a minute during peak hours, and 39p a minute in the evenings and at weekends. The cost of using the console to watch television and using the internet for email remains [pound]2.90 a day.

Patientline has endured months of obloquy from the public and the regulator, Ofcom, over its phone charges. Its difficulties stem from the need to make money on a [pound]170m investment in bedside equipment, which it has installed at hundreds of hospitals across the UK - at no charge to NHS trusts, the Government or taxpayers.

The company's chairman, Geoff White, said the failure by NHS trusts to take up its other services, such as electronic systems allowing patient records to be accessed at the bedside, had hit Patientline's revenues.

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