By Nick Heath, 6 January 2009 12:09
NEWS
Hospitals have been told to allow more patients to use mobile phones on their wards.
Updated government guidelines, issued today, say hospitals should encourage patients to use their mobiles wherever possible, by putting up signs indicating where handsets can be safely used.
The Department of Health guidelines say mobile use should be allowed where devices do not interfere with equipment, the privacy of others or cause a nuisance.
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Health minister Ben Bradshaw said the changes would benefit patients by allowing them to keep in touch while in hospital.
However, the changes have sparked anger among the NHS Confederation, which represents workers across the NHS.
Nigel Edwards, director of policy for the NHS Confederation, said hospitals could be made more stressful by loud noise and annoying ringtones brought by the advent of mobiles.
"Doctors and nurses doing their rounds should not have to constantly wait for patients to finish phone calls and nighttimes on wards should not be disturbed by the chirruping of text messages," he said in a statement.
Hospitals are one of the latest havens from the mobile ringtone to come under threat and the move to allow phones on wards follows a decision by European regulators to pave the way for mobile calls on flights.
Comments
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1. David Fletcher
What I would like to know is, has there ever been a documented case of a cell phone causing equipment on a hospital ward to malfunction?
I suspect that it is a complete myth. For instance, those who watch the mythbusters on one of the TV channels may remember their attempts to make a cell phone ignite petrol vapour. As I recall, using a normal cell phone even with far higher concentrations of vapour than normally occurs did not cause ignition.
I have long held the opinion that the main purpose of banning cell phone use on hospital wards is to force the use of the provided equipment for phone calls, at what I would describe as profiteering cost.
2. Melvin Reynolds
The snappily titled ISO/TR 21730, "Health informatics — Use of mobile wireless communication and computing technology in healthcare facilities — Recommendations for electromagnetic compatibility (management of unintentional electromagnetic interference) with medical devices", documented the technical arguments a while back - so the issues really are cultural, but no less legitimate for that.
3. Simon
RE: David Fletcher
Well not directly, but that is probably because of the blanket ban. You only have to hold a digital mobile near any piece of audio equipment to hear the interference they cause. A lot of hospital equipment has probably never been tested for susceptibility to such interference, and in general, older equipment tends to "lack robustness" to such interference. In addition, some equipment (such as cardiac monitors) has to monitor tiny voltages in an environment where it's impossible to screen the equipment, and the arrangement of wires (ie antennas to the interference) during use cannot be determined in advance.
Given the problems mentioned above, a ban was probably not completely unreasonable.
These days, there is much greater understanding of the interference issues, and it's reasonable to allow mobile use in carefully selected areas. In the past it was feared that "the general public" would not be able to understand the concept of "OK here, not OK there" - not sure what's changed !
It will be interesting to see how it's managed. Ideally it's needs a powerful Matron with the authority to tell an annoying patient "shut up or switch off".
4. Gerard Wilson
David is correct. Many years ago experiments were carried out that showed no interaction between hospital equipment and normal phone use. In fact the phone had to be placed in physical contact with the apparatus / sensors to make any (slight) effect. All part of rip-off Britain.