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<p>The Department is not party to the contracts made with any of the companies that
provide the bedside telephone service to patients and it has not made an assessment
of the contingency arrangements National Health Service trusts have in place, should
their service provider be unable to fulfil its contractual obligations. Therefore
it has no authority to impose any price changes on the suppliers of the services.</p><p>Patients
can use their mobile phones as an alternative in specified areas of the hospital and
payphones should be available as an alternative.</p><p>It is the responsibility of
the NHS trust to consider contingency arrangements, should it wish to continue to
provide this service to its patients. The telephone company contracts are made between
individual NHS trusts and their chosen suppliers. Trusts do, in fact, have the ability
to renegotiate their terms.</p><p>The bedside telephone is an additional service to
that which existed in the past so alternatives already exist in hospitals. It is still
possible for relatives and friends to contact a hospital via its main switchboard,
and then be transferred to the nurses’ station on a ward to enquire about their relative’s
health, as they have always been able to do in the past.</p>
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