PATIENTS' TELEPHONE CHARGES AT NHS TRUST HOSPITALS

EDM number 1350 in 1992-93, proposed by Rhodri Morgan on 09/02/1993.

That this House deplores the spread of exploitative monopoly practices in NHS trust hospitals; and finds deeply disturbing the action of the management of Guy's Hospital in removing standard BT telephones and replacing them with special Landis and Gyr telephones with an adjustable price meter set so as to charge patients in a captive market 500 per cent. more than the previous BT telephones, thereby underlining that patients entering trust hospitals find themselves in the hands of managers who have misunderstood Government Health Ministers' sales patter that trust hospitals are all part of a scheme to help make money follow the patient, and are in fact now helping themselves make money from the patient.

This motion has been signed by a total of 74 MPs.