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Families calling loved ones on hospital bedside phones face paying nearly five times more than prisoners ringing family and friends from jail after inmates benefited from a hefty price cut.
Charges levied to prisoners making phone calls via wing payphones have reportedly been slashed by 50 per cent in a change agreed between HM Prison Service and service provider BT.
Costs of calling landlines during the day have been slashed from 6.33p per minute to 3.1p per minute, and from 5.62p per minute to 2.75p per minute at weekends, Inside Time, the newspaper for prisoners, reported.
The disparity in charges has angered campaigners for the elderly who say older patients are less likely to have their own mobiles to contact family
Meanwhile, Hospedia, which provides bedside telephones and entertainment systems for hospital patients at 130 NHS sites, charges 13p per minute for people calling patients from an outside line.
The disparity was attacked by campaigners for the elderly, who say older people are more
