Website of the Department of Health

Using mobile phones in NHS hospitals - January 2009

The Department has issued new mobile phone usage good practice guidance, which replaces all previous guidance issued by the Department.

The Department wishes to reflect the rapidly developing principles of patient choice in the matter of mobile phone usage. It therefore considers that the working presumption should be that patients will be allowed the widest possible use of mobile phones in hospitals where the NHS trust’s local risk assessment indicates that such use would not represent a threat to:

• patients’ own safety or that of others,
• the operation of electrically sensitive medical devices in critical care situations,
• the levels of privacy and dignity that must be the hallmark of all NHS care.

• Download guidance (PDF, 133K)