A full service is running at all HTS hospitals                                                 HospiCom3 now available!                                                 Mobile phones can affect medical equipment and harm patients. You must switch off your mobile phone in the hospital.                                     Please be aware that VAT will go up in January 2011 and this will be reflected in our TV prices.
         

PatientCall

The PatientCall system has been specifically designed to provide a bedside telephone service for inpatients in hospitals. The service, provided at no cost to the Trust, enhances the facilities provided to patients and also
assists in the efficiency of nursing staff by reducing the volume of patient enquiries received on ward nurse stations. The provision of telephone services for patients in NHS Hospitals is very limited and is usually restricted to trolley-mounted Payphones leaving patients with no other facility to communicate with friends and relatives.

Research undertaken by a leading UK payphone supplier indicated that trolley-mounted Payphones are, on average, out of order 47% of the time. Due to major risks associated with interference on critical life support
systems and equipment, the use of mobile phones in hospital buildings has effectively been banned throughout the UK.

Being in hospital can often be an extremely stressful period for the patient and their relatives, therefore, having access to the PatientCall service, which provides a personal bedside telephone for each inpatient to make and
receive telephone calls, is seen as a major therapeutic benefit to a hospital admission. Each telephone has a personal unique number for incoming telephone calls and outgoing calls are made by purchasing a prepaid calling card with charges set below standard payphone rate.

A number of restrictions are in place with regard to incoming calls to minimise disruption. These include diversion to a recorded message if the telephone is not answered within 5 rings and the barring of calls between 10pm and 7am.

The benefits of the PatientCall service to Hospital nursing staff cannot be overlooked as it enables them to spend much more of their time on direct patient care as it is no longer necessary for them to deal with the abundance of telephone enquiries from friends and relatives or having to pass messages.
It is a common complaint that when telephoning a hospital to enquire after a friend's health you are simply told the patient is comfortable. This is due to the fact that most hospitals restrict detailed information to the next of kin only and obviously being able to communicate directly with the patient bypasses all these problems.

Information regarding the service is included in Hospital inpatient guides and also sent out in every admissions pack. In addition the service is also well publicised on site.