back to article Welsh hospitals to allow mobile use

The Welsh Health Minister has said that Welsh hospitals should permit mobile phone use, which makes sense as England has allowed them since January 2009. That was when the Department of Health recommended that mobile phones be permitted in English hospitals, but Wales has spent an additional 20 months coming to the same …

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  1. Valerion
    Happy

    Nice little earner?

    IIRC Patientline went into administration in 2008 so they couldn't have been doing that well out of it.

  2. Grail
    Troll

    Time to consolidate?

    Yet another example of the total waste in people and resources from having devolved power from Westminster to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So the Welsh are so pig headed about devolution that they never bother to look "over the wall" to see what the others are doing.

    Perhaps follow standard IT management practices and now consolidate all the various functions back into a single United Kingdom government.

    Who was the genius who came up with the idea of devolution in the first place?

    1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

      "A mere 20 months after the English"

      Whilst I agree that some things being devolved are a waste of money, it's your overall attitude which typifies why some of us are pleased to have devolution.

      So, were the English too pig headed to "look over the wall" at Wales removing parking charges in Hospitals?

      I seem to recall that England was over a year later coming up with that one, and they've dropped the idea now too

  3. Niall 1

    So the machine that goes ping

    is now the crazy frog machine?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    A title look you

    Do they have mobiles in Wales?

    1. Paw Bokenfohr
      Joke

      yes, but no coverage...

      ...unless you're in a city or somewhere frequented by the grockles.

  5. Chris 211

    Backwards

    I bet for the next 5 years hospital staff will still be telling people mobiles are not permitted. WIFI has been certified safe in hospital environments for years but many people still gulp and question while I am conducting a wireless survey and have funny looking boxes with EVIL KILLER aerials on it. Mind you I kept an ear out for flat-tone when surveying cardiology.

    Now we need to get smoking and mobile phone use back onto petrol forecourts and finally were rid this silly unproven scariness.

  6. iwork
    FAIL

    Typical Assembly nonsense

    The reaction from the Assembly is absolutely typical and is why the WAG is a completely useless institution. They absolutely refuse to look at anything that happens in England, ever. As if Wales is so completely different from England that English decisions have utterly no relevance. Either that or they're so desperate to appear different that they won't ever adopt a similar policy for fear of being accused of copycatting.

    1. John Sturdy

      How about looking but not following?

      Being somewhere that looks at what Blair did, and decides not to do likewise, sounds good to me.

  7. Richard 45

    No title

    You didn't report that it spells the end for Patient Line. From the article in the Daily Post:

    "The Health Minister has also decided that current contracts with providers of hospital phone and TV systems should not be renewed once the contracts end."

    1. MadonnaC

      RTFA

      look at the penultimate paragraph.

  8. Matt Hawkins
    Flame

    Mobile Ban Nonsense

    All we need now is for Petrol stations to get rid of those stupid no-mobile-phone signs.

  9. Richard Wharram
    Thumb Down

    Cuts ?

    Decisions like this are devolved so that the Welsh authorities have done the same research the English did over again ?

    Where's my ****ing scissors ?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    S'alright...

    ...we've saved so much with the free prescriptions and free hospital parking in Wales that we can afford to pay for the odd phone call and still have cash to spare.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They didn't allow mobiles?

    They didn't allow mobiles? Oops, that's me and all the others breaking the rules for the last 5+ years then.

    Admittedly, this is outside of the acute and intensive wards, but in theory there's a blanket ban on the inside of each site. Only excepted for a swathe of creaky old pagers allocated to a huge number of staff that give out more interference than a pile of modern mobiles, a plethora of wireless routers and all the other gubbins that tend to use RF in a modern hospital.

    The smart money on the inside has allways been on the rumour that it's the patients that aren't allowed them otherwise they won't use the patientline rip off services - of which the trusts are paid a fair cut.

    AC for obvious reasons :)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pig headed?

    Grail...maybe you should look over here; we have free prescriptions - just another idea that hasn't made it over the wall to where you live...

    ...did I tell you about free museums as well...

    ...and others... damned those devolved countries being able to think for themselves, take some responsibility....

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FYI

    Mobiles have been allowed in most hospitals in wales for years. where's the news exactly?

    and the reason we don't have our health departments controlled by england is that ours actually do a lot better - more nurse recruiting, better retention for existing nurses, more spending on equipment and resources, shorter waiting lists, wide availability of specialist drugs, wider range of treatments available, free prescriptions for all, could carry on all day, but bored now.

    1. Arthur Coppock
      Grenade

      Re FYI

      Yeah, and the English pay for it all.

      1. Crofty616

        O RLY?

        Here was me thinking that the UK paid for it...

  14. David Glasgow

    Pendant alert

    "Mobile's were banned in hospitals"

    Mobile's whats were banned?

    1. Richard 45
      Headmaster

      Pedant alert, actually

      That's all. Just swinging by...

  15. Cucumber C Face
    Headmaster

    Looking over the wall - at NPfIT for example?

    Wales completely ignored the political hubris, vapourware, civil service f*ckwittery and management consultancy orgy that is the >English< NHS National Pogrom for IT / [Dis]Connecting for Health.

    Thereby the devolved Parliament in Wales might easily have paid for itself for the next century or two.

    Yes - plainly daft as brushes West of Offa's Dyke.

  16. JaitcH
    Thumb Down

    A pox on PatientLine

    When my Mother was dying I tried calling the Patientline number at the hospital but could not get connected.

    Eventually, I reached the nurses station for her ward only to be told she had died ... minutes earlier.

    All incoming hospital calls should be free of charge and be sufficient to handle calls.

    Patientline is yet another leach on society.

  17. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

    Mobiles are allowed in English hospitals ?

    That'll be why our local place has all the same "turn off your mobile" signs that it's had for years. On the other hand, no-one seems to bat an eyelid when people use them though.

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