Critics slam "rip off" 50p-a-minute charge to call patients" hospital phones

Relatives who call patients in hospital are still being forced to pay “rip off” charges of 50p a minute despite a promised clampdown on the issue.

The firm Hospedia, which runs bedside TV and phone services in NHS hospitals and made £21.2m in revenue last year, makes people call loved ones via costly 070 numbers. The charges vary from hospital to hospital, but many trust websites say they cost about 50p a minute or more.

Callers are also forced to listen to a lengthy recorded message of about 70 seconds – which racks up charges before they are even connected to their loved one.The message contains information already obvious to the caller, such as the fact the patient is in hospital, and tells callers to be “patient”. Critics say patients are being treated as “cash cows” and described the charges as “extortionate”.

Hospedia currently manages TV and bedside phone services in 150 NHS hospitals, installing services for free in return for keeping the money charged to patients and relatives.

The firm said in 2014 it planned to phase out the use of 070 numbers but it has not happened. Ofcom reviewed the high costs in 2006 following complaints from users and recommended a substantial reduction in incoming call charges.

It urged the Department of Health to review all aspects of the system, and the way these costs appear “to be borne disproportionately by friends and family”.

The department looked at the issue and agreed to consider a skip facility at the start of the recorded message, enabling callers to bypass it and reduce the cost of the call. But this never came into effect and high call charges have remained.

A health department report in 2007 concluded that decisions on phones should remain with local hospitals. MPs on the health select committee also recommended a reduction in phone costs and called for a skip facility on the recorded message.

Hospedia refused to answer several questions posed by the Press Association, including how much money it makes from 070 numbers and why it still uses them.

A spokesman said: “Ofcom granted us use of the 070 number range to enable every bedside unit to have its own unique telephone number so that friends and relatives can call patients directly, alleviating pressure on nursing staff having to field calls.

“The patient’s bedside phone number is unique to each patient’s account and can follow them around the hospital if they are moved bed, a frequent occurrence.”

He said Hospedia offers free TV on children’s wards and free channels BBC1, BB2, ITV, Channel 4 and channel 5 from 8am to noon on adult wards. Outbound calls to landlines are also free.

He added: “We believe we offer an excellent service, which would not be provided at all if it weren’t for us taking on the investment and on-going management and support costs.

“Patients can choose to pay for our services, beyond those we offer for free, or not.”

But Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: “These charges are a total rip off. When channels are free at home and people have already paid for their TV licence, it is unfair for them to need to pay it again.

“If someone is to spend four weeks in hospital with a full TV package that is the same price as their yearly fee.

“Hospitals and these businesses are treating the sick as cash cows.

“From hospital parking charges, TV packages to making people call expensive phone services, it seems like they try to eke out every bit of cash they can, it’s frankly unacceptable.”

Liz McAnulty, chair of the Patients Association, said: “Phone contact can be hugely valuable and reassuring to people in hospital and their loved ones at home.

“Any facility to provide this must offer a high quality service at a fair price, but Hospedia’s service appears to fail these tests badly.

“It is unacceptable for people calling someone in hospital to be charged heavily for 70 seconds before they even get through.”

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “Since older people typically have longer hospital stays and do not always have access to a mobile phone, they and their families are particularly likely to be impacted.”

Lynda Thomas, chief executive for Macmillan Cancer Support, said the cost of calls was “shocking”.

She added: “When you are having cancer treatment, getting a call from a relative can make a huge difference as you can share your worries, seek reassurance, or just hear their voice.

“But if relatives have to pay extortionate amounts to make these calls they may not call, cut it short, or shoulder the burden of these high charges, at a time when the whole family may be struggling financially.”

A spokeswoman for Ofcom said it was “concerned” about 070 costs and wished to hear from customers as part of its ongoing monitoring.

She said there is no requirement on Hospedia to use 070 numbers, adding: “We are concerned about the cost of making calls to and from hospital patients.

“Following an investigation into this, we referred our findings to the Department of Health, which has since changed its rules on mobile phone use in hospitals.

“We are glad that more patients now have the option of using their mobiles when in hospital, but arrangements for bedside phones are managed by the NHS.

“We want to ensure adequate safeguards for consumers so we are examining the use of 070 number ranges, amid concerns that the cost of calling these numbers can be confusing.

“We welcome evidence of any harm so we can further protect consumers.”

A health department spokeswoman said: “Suppliers should always put patients first in the way they provide services.

“Staying connected to friends and family while in hospital is crucial and we expect local hospitals to tackle anything that prevents this.”

Last year, Hospedia doubled its minimum price for a TV package from £2.50 to £5.

Prices for TV packages vary between hospitals, with the Big Bundle TV and internet package costing £17.50 for two days at Newcastle General, but £15 at Ipswich Hospital. Five days can cost £35.

Sky Sports can cost an extra £10 on top each day. Longer-term packages are less costly.

Critics slam "rip off" 50p-a-minute charge to call patients" hospital phones

How to think about the risks of mobile phones and Wi-Fi

The US Green party presidential candidate Jill Stein has come under fire for supposedly ‘anti-science’ statements relating to the risks of vaccines, genetically modified crops and electromagnetic fields from Wi-Fi. She said that there were ‘real questions’ about the dangers of vaccines, that GM foods have ‘not been proven safe’ and that ‘more more research is needed’ on the risks of electromagnetic fields.

For many American liberals, who have often feel that science is on their side in an increasingly polarised political war, her statements seem like a betrayal. While she is hardly endorsing a conspiracy, Stein is a Harvard-trained doctor and she is expected to know that these things are pretty safe.

As with climate change, it is tempting to claim that the science is certain, the evidence is clear and the debate should move on. Things are rarely so black-and-white. In politics, the facts don’t speak for themselves, so it falls to experts to make sense of the shades of grey.

Experts have been having a tough time recently. Among the casualties of the Brexit campaign was the status of experts and their hard-won evidence. Michael Gove’s response to elite institutions’ predictions of economic calamity was that ‘we’ve had enough of experts’. Much to the frustration of the Remain camp, the Leavers showed little interest in who knows what. For them, it was about who was in control. In the US, Donald Trump’s ascendancy has led some to conclude that we are now in an era of ‘post-truth’ politics. (We shouldn’t ignore the irony that many fans of conspiracy theories label themselves ‘Truthers’).

So what should experts do? How can governments make good decisions when any scientific claim is likely to be torn to shreds?

Take electromagnetic fields (EMFs). We are surrounded by them. They are invisibly emitted across a range of frequencies by overhead power lines, microwave ovens and mobile phones as well as Wi-Fi routers. Scientists have known for decades that high-frequency EMFs like ultraviolet light can cause cancer. And they also know that powerful, low-frequency EMFs can cause health problems by heating up wet body tissue, which is how microwaves cook food. These well-known mechanisms provide the basis both for the regulation of new technologies and for advice that we should wear sun cream to prevent skin cancer and limit our exposure to X-rays. However, there are also some unknowns, some hints that long-term exposure to low-power EMFs may cause trouble. When these uncertainties are aired in public, scientists and campaigners have in the past been accused of scaremongering. Earlier this year, the Australian broadcaster ABC was seen by some as irresponsible for its broadcasting of a clumsy documentary on EMF risk called ‘Wi-Fried’.

In 2000, however, scientific uncertainty was seen as sufficiently troubling to justify a new approach to the regulation of mobile phones in the UK. In a new paper, I revisit the controversy over mobile phone risks and conclude that it provides a useful model for how experts should deal with complex issues.

Some readers may remember that, around the turn of millennium, the health scare over mobile phone EMFs was front-page news. More than a decade later, worries have largely abated. A YouGov survey in 2013 measured public concern about mobiles among the population at 9%, down from 27% in 2000. Over the same period, mobile phone ownership went up from 50% of the population to almost 100%.

Percentage mentioning handsets/masts as a concern

Base: All GB adults (2,164) P10Q1: What, if any, health-related dangers concern you most nowadays? Please type in the box below. P15Q1: And which other health-related dangers are you also seriously concerned about?

The science of mobile phone risks has not advanced substantially. New studies continue to raise questions. Advisory bodies continue to draw attention to troubling epidemiological data, criticising industry bodies for their ‘inertia’. In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified mobile phone EMFs as a ‘possible human carcinogen’ (placing them alongside bacon and almost every other enjoyable food). Officially, the jury is still out of the risks of EMFs, and most of us seem to be OK with that.

In 1999, an expert committee was established to deal with a rash of headlines about mobile phone dangers. A few people had blamed their brain tumours on their new mobile phones. Some who claimed to be ‘electrosensitive’ argued that mobile phones were making them dizzy or ill (an extreme version of this is the subject of this brilliant Guardian film). Local communities were becoming more vociferous in their opposition to mobile phone masts that were springing up around them. Licences for third generation mobile phone bandwidth had just been auctioned, giving the Government a £22 billion windfall.

The response to public concerns had until this point been to reassure people that all technologies complied with guidelines that were based on the scientific fact of the heating effects of microwaves. As long as phones and phone masts were legal, they were therefore safe. As one regulatory spokesperson put it, “If it doesn’t heat you, then it doesn’t harm you”. End of conversation. Many concerned citizens were not satisfied by this response. They asked why the regulators appeared to be ignoring suggestions of so-called ‘non-thermal effects. They asked why long-term exposures hadn’t been investigated. They asked whether some groups may be less safe than others.

Experts were no longer answering the questions that were being asked of them. The Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones was created to fill the credibility gap. It was chaired by Professor Sir William Stewart, who had been the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser at the tail end of the Mad Cow Disease (BSE) outbreak. This crisis had shaped Stewart’s response to the mobile phones controversy. He told a parliamentary committee that, after BSE, ‘Never again will any scientific committee say that there is no risk.’ His group took seriously the uncertainties surrounding mobile phone risks and saw people’s concerns as legitimate ones. He recommended that children should be advised not to use mobile phones, that phones should carry labels with their Specific Absorption Rates (a measure of how much energy is absorbed by body tissue over a certain time) and that mobile phone networks should be more careful with how they place their masts. He demanded that industry and government fund more research to fill gaps in knowledge on things like electrosensitivity. Following the Stewart report in 2000, the UK officially became more uncertain about the risks of EMFs.

Expert groups are often relied upon by politicians to tidy up the facts on contentious issues. It rarely works. People don’t like being patronised with easy answers where there are none to find. With mobile phones, a group of experts took a different approach. They instead admitted that there are uncertainties and trusted in citizens’ ability to navigate them. When it comes to climate change, Wi-Fi, GM crops, vaccines and mobile phones, there will always be scientific grey areas. If experts want to regain their credibility, they urgently need to find ways to talk about them.

This post is based on a new paper, ‘Scientific Advice on the Move’, published as part of a special issue of Palgrave Communications.

How to think about the risks of mobile phones and Wi-Fi

Do mobile phones result in brain tumours?

After surgery, he was left deaf in one ear and suffered some facial paralysis, but has been given the all-clear. His employers, however, did not see eye to eye with his decision not to use a mobile. “I basically got ‘managed out’,” he says. “When I went back to work and explained that the tumour had been near my ear, they said, ‘Well, can’t you just put the phone to your other ear?’ It was ludicrous.

“I now run my own training agency without a mobile – it can be done, but we have all become so reliant on mobiles that we think we can’t survive without them.”

His sons, aged 13 and nine, do not own mobiles and are not too bothered about their father’s ban. “If people ask, they just explain what happened to me,” says Mr Whitfield. “So many people don’t know about the risks. If mobile phones were a food, they would have been taken off the shelves by now.

“I don’t know any parent who would hand their child drugs and say, off you go, yet virtually every kid has a mobile. I find it terrifying.”

But just what the risks are for children is still open to fierce debate. Last week, the Department of Health announced that it had commissioned the world’s largest study of the effects of mobile-phone use. The two-year Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (Scamp) will look at 2,500 children aged 11 and 12. They will be asked about phone use and tested on functions such as memory and attention to see whether the use of mobiles has any impact. It has been suggested that children and teenagers could be more vulnerable to radio-frequency exposure because their nervous systems are still developing.

Around 70 per cent of 11- and 12-year-olds in the UK now own a phone, rising to 90 per cent of children over 14. One recent phone app even encourages parents to download nursery rhymes and place the device on a child’s pillow so they can be soothed to sleep with lullabies. And although the 2005 Stewart report on phone technology recommended that children under 16 should only use mobiles for essential calls, the reality is that most teenagers spend hours on them a week.

So what are the risks? Experts may not agree on whether phones cause cancer, but there is a consensus that excessive use is leading to a rise in other related issues, such as repetitive strain injury (known as “texting thumb” by some doctors) and attention problems in some children.

And although most studies have not found any firm link between mobile-phone use and cancers or other health problems in children and adults, pressure groups and some scientists dispute those findings. Denis Henshaw, Emeritus Professor at Bristol University and honorary scientific director of the Children with Cancer UK charity, is one of them.

“The dangers are being seriously underplayed,” he says. “We are seeing a rise in brain tumours in adults and children. And because brain tumours are relatively rare, we are talking small numbers, but the increase is there.

“Why should it come as any surprise that holding the equivalent of a small microwave oven to your ear should be a health risk?”

Prof Henshaw and others believe that mobile phone packaging should carry cigarette-style public health warnings rather than the advice being buried in manufacturers’ manuals. And Mr Whitfield agrees. “After I was diagnosed, I looked at my phone manual and very, very far down it says you should keep your phone at least 10mm away from your body at all times,” he says. “Hardly anyone reads those manuals, but even the manufacturers are admitting there is a safety issue here.”

Prof Henshaw also believes the growth in mobile-phone use over the past decade means that most scientific studies have yet to record the real effects on health.

But Prof Anthony Swerdlow, of the Institute of Cancer Research, disputes the claim that there has been an increase in brain tumours in children, saying Office for National Statistics figures show only a small increase in much older people. “We can’t be sure, but there is no evidence to show there is a link with brain cancers.”

The biggest study to date also failed to resolve the issue. The Interphone study, published in 2010, studied 13,000 adult users in 13 countries over 10 years. Researchers found that heavy users had a slightly higher risk of gliomas (a type of brain tumour), but concluded that they had neither proved a link with brain cancers, nor demonstrated that there wasn’t a risk.

Other scientists are not so sure. A Swedish researcher, Prof Lennart Hardell, has published a controversial paper that found children who use mobiles are five times more likely to develop brain tumours, although his results have been questioned by many scientists.

A French study, published last week, also found that heavy users of mobile phones may be at higher risk of gliomas and meningiomas. Researchers from the University of Bordeaux compared 447 adults with the tumours with a control group of almost 1,000 healthy people. They found that people who used their phones for more than 15 hours a month over five years were up to three times more likely to develop the tumours compared with those who rarely used a mobile.

But even the researchers admitted that the findings did not take into account other factors, such as smoking.

Phones and how we use them have also changed in the past 10 years. Most teenagers are now more likely to be texting and messaging than holding a device to their ear, and new smartphones emit fewer radio waves.

In 2011, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified mobiles as a “possible carcinogen”. But the decision was highly controversial – some members of the scientific committee walked out of the proceedings in protest.

But certain countries are taking action. France has banned mobiles and Wi-Fi in primary schools, while phone shops in Canada are required to hand out safety leaflets.

Last year, the Italian supreme court ruled that a businessman’s brain tumour had been caused by mobile-phone use, in a case that could pave the way for European-wide class actions. The case has yet to be resolved.

But the mobile phone industry remains buoyant. “A large number of studies have been performed over the last two decades to assess whether mobile phones are a potential health risk,” says John Cooke, executive director of the Mobile Operators Association. “To date, no adverse health effects have been established.”

For parents, the health risks are important – but a straw poll of mothers on Facebook last week found that many are more concerned about another impact of phones on their children.

“My son and his friends are messaging on their phones all the time,” said Hayley Brown, mother of a 17-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter. “I do worry about the health risks but I’m also concerned that they are losing the art of normal social interaction. It seems to be the only way they can communicate now.”

Do mobile phones result in brain tumours?

Why we shouldn"t worry about teens making use of mobile phones | Joanna Moorhead

‘I wonder regardless of whether there may be a few shocks in store for men and women who consider mobile phone technological innovation spells doom for today’s youngsters. It seems to me that the opposite might be the case.’ Photograph: Getty Images

Like most twelve-yr-olds, my daughter received her 1st mobile phone a number of months ago – just as she started out secondary school. Yr seven is the time when existence really opens up for younger men and women: suddenly they are travelling solo to college and going out on their own, meeting up with pals to go buying or to the park or to the cinema. It manufactured sense to me as a mother or father, as it does to most mothers and fathers with youngsters of this age group, to get her a telephone.

Do I be concerned about her connection with her cellphone, not just now but on into the adolescent many years that are nearly upon her? Yes, I do – and so do many other parents. So I welcome today’s information that Imperial University is launching a examine into the use of mobiles, focusing on two,500 year seven college students who will be assessed now and again in two years’ time. The research is not seeking at well being risks around the use of mobile phones – of brain tumours and so on – although these will continue to be monitored in the years and decades ahead. Rather, it really is hunting at cognitive issues connected with the use of mobiles: such as how the use of phones may affect children’s memory or interest span.

I seem forward enormously to what the study reveals, but I wonder whether or not there may be a few shocks in shop for individuals who feel mobile phone technologies spells doom for today’s youngsters, eating up their brain cells with mindless chit-chat and pointless online video games. It appears to me that the opposite may be the case: my older daughter, who is 15 and uber-linked (even for a 15-year-previous), looks to me to have honed her rapid-wittedness hand in glove with her mobile mobile phone. Multitasking? Fast contemplating? Dilemma solving? Information gathering? My daughter utilizes her smartphone for all this and much more and I consider you’d agree that all the above are helpful, existence-enhancing attributes for a teenager.

Another massive advantage mobile phones offer youthful men and women is independence, some thing that they crave and that parents want for them. My 12-12 months-previous can do all kinds of duties by herself that I, aged twelve, would have relied on my mother and father to do: she can find out cinema occasions, supply garments she would like in retailers, check what time the vet opens so we can get the rabbit’s claws clipped. Her globe has opened up thanks to her mobile mobile phone, in an fully positive way, and it will undoubtedly have knock-on effects for her development.

So what are my worries about mobiles? Effectively, considerably much more than both brain tumours or arrested cognitive growth, I’m concerned about addiction. I truthfully cannot don’t forget the final time I noticed my 15-yr-outdated without having her smartphone, other than possibly when she was in the swimming pool on holiday final summer time (and even then, it was positioned close by on a sunbed). Teenagers can appear obsessed with their mobile: checking them every single couple of minutes, texting individuals all the time, checking to see how a lot of “likes” they’ve got following they’ve posted on social media, refusing to place their phones to 1 side when they are sitting round the table for Sunday lunch …

Then once more, that reminds me of some other individuals I know – me and my husband. We’re fairly wedded to our phones as well. Challenge us about it (our youngsters certainly do) and we’ll cheerfully reassure you that it’s all to do with function, that we’re just monitoring some information story, or that we’re waiting for an essential call. Sadly, however, I have to admit that the cause I check my telephone also frequently is almost certainly for the same motives my daughters do the same with theirs: boredom and insecurity. Youngsters, of course, have these issues by the bucketload, and I sometimes think mobiles have made adolescents of us all.

So in many techniques I suspect that, no matter what the Imperial University survey discovers, the individuals we should be seeking most closely at is not our youngsters, it really is ourselves. After all, we’re grappling with the newness and the unknowns of mobile cellphone technologies just as our children are, and the items they’re receiving incorrect may possibly be the factors we’re not function-modelling very well for them. Time, and this review, will hopefully tell us far more.

Why we shouldn"t worry about teens making use of mobile phones | Joanna Moorhead

Chiropractors" spine-chilling warnings about computer systems, phones and pancakes | Michael Marshall

Scaremongering more than new technological innovation has been all around as long as technology itself, but it sank to a new low last month when The Telegraph published the following:

Computers blamed for children’s undesirable backs

Computers and mobile telephones are triggering an improve in back problems for teenagers, with 40 per cent of youngsters struggling soreness, a examine has claimed.

Researchers warned parents that their teenagers are at escalating threat from back or neck pain due to sedentary lifestyles and excessive use of technology.

The coverage was based mostly on a press release from the British Chiropractic Association as element of its “Engineering and Teenagers” awareness campaign. The BCA’s press workplace informed me that the study was an opinion poll conducted by a industry research firm, but they declined my request to look at the inquiries that had been asked or the several decision solutions that had been offered.

However, it appears the researchers questioned mothers and fathers of 11 to 16-year-olds about their child’s technological innovation usage and whether their children had ever seasoned back pain, and then invited them to speculate about what might have brought on the discomfort. That the methodology concerned no actual examinations of the kids – either by spinal authorities or chiropractors – significantly undermines the findings.

It comes as no surprise that the full research is not offered to the public, allow alone published in a respectable journal. Yet this flimsy research is apparently adequate to base an complete awareness-raising campaign on, one particular which the media readily picked up.

This technique has worked not only for the BCA, but also for other chiropractic organisations. In March, the United Chiropractic Association went one further than the BCA, releasing a press release that inspired the Daily Mail to declare the humble smartphone to be a prospective killer:

Could sending texts Kill you? Messaging may possibly lead to heart condition and breathing troubles in later existence, examine claims.

Texting and employing mobile products for long intervals of time could lead to a decrease life expectancy, in accordance to a new study.

Chiropractic experts feel the hunching posture adopted by phone or tablet end users can result in breathing difficulties, top to cardiovascular problems later on in daily life and a increased threat of death in older age.

The hyperlink amongst hyperkyphosis, a deformation of the spine usually connected with degenerative circumstances this kind of as osteoporosis, and the posture adopted even though studying emails looks to be the invention of the UCA – it undoubtedly is not supported by any reliable evidence. Quite how our smartphone-reading through posture differs from the bog-common book-studying posture we’ve adopted for centuries is anyone’s guess.

That the Mail reported the UCA’s press release with no a trace of criticism – or, indeed, proof – is undoubtedly poor journalism, and it comes as no shock that its story was rapidly derided by experts.

The campaign comes soon after many years of criticism for chiropractors: in 2010, the BCA lost an costly legal case following suing science writer Simon Singh (who is now my colleague at the Excellent Pondering Society). The BCA was unhappy with his criticisms of claims produced by the association and its members that spinal manipulation – which according to chiropractic concept can unblock “subluxations” in the innate power of the spine – could deal with colic in infants. (There is no dependable proof that spinal manipulation can deal with infant colic.)

Despite this substantial-profile defeat in the courts, a lot of chiropractors – such as some members of the BCA – still routinely distribute leaflets at their practices containing claims that chiropractic remedy can manipulate the spines of newborn infants to deal with colic, breathing problems, ear infections, poor appetite and even allergies. That BCA members even now appear to, in the phrases of Singh, “happily advertise bogus treatments” for which there is “not a jot of evidence” is alarming to say the least. Chiropractors may possibly nicely feel that they are assisting their individuals, but the ideal offered proof does not support their bizarre theories.

The apparent inaction of the chiropractic regulatory bodies is troubling. In the wake of publicity induced by the libel action towards Singh, the sector came below intense scrutiny, with complaints of misleading or unsubstantiated claims levelled against one in 3 registrants of the Common Chiropractic Council. Four years on, it looks minor has been done to discourage chiropractors from making unsubstantiated claims – the GCC seems to be as ineffective as the treatment options provided by its members.

Even though the regulatory side of the chiropractic business has been slow to act, the exact same can not be explained of its advertising and PR departments. Apart from scaremongering more than our deadly smartphone usage, we’ve also been subjected to press releases warning of the dangers of sleeping on poor mattresses, more than-stuffing our ‘man-bags’, and even flipping pancakes.

If chiropractors want to be taken significantly, perhaps they ought to emphasis on bettering the regulation of their market and conducting rigorous study rather than relying on PR stunts to drum up company. But I suspect they will carry on to bend in excess of backwards to exploit every PR opportunity.

In the meantime, the newspapers who merrily regurgitate these flimsy stories should be careful: if they stoop any lower, they’ll put their backs out.

Chiropractors" spine-chilling warnings about computer systems, phones and pancakes | Michael Marshall

Mobile phones "pose no wellness risk" in accordance to report

“This independent programme is now complete, and in spite of exhaustive investigation, we have discovered no evidence of dangers to well being from the radio waves developed by mobile phones or their base stations.

“Thanks to the investigation carried out within the programme, we can now be a lot a lot more confident about the security of present day telecommunications systems.”

The £13.six million MTHR programme has been jointly funded by the Uk government and the telecommunications market.

All through its existence, the programme has been overseen by an independent committee to make certain that none of the funding bodies could influence the outcomes of the study.

Despite the findings, Professor Coggon warned that there are nevertheless some queries to be answered about the impact of mobile phone use on well being.

He mentioned: “There is much less uncertainty linked to mobile mobile phone use now so we have much significantly less reason to be concerned.

“Even so you are not able to rule out the posibility both that something may happen in the long term but not be manifested in the early years of mobile phones, or that there us something subtler that does not display up in the research that have been completed up right up until now.”

The MTHR has offered funding to set up a new research which will seem at long-phrase mobile phone use.

The COSMOS research will stick to a hundred,000 long-term mobile cellphone users to see if there are any delayed adverse results linked to mobile cellphone use.

Mobile phones "pose no wellness risk" in accordance to report

Mobile phones "pose no well being risk"

“This independent programme is now complete, and despite exhaustive analysis, we have identified no evidence of risks to wellness from the radio waves created by mobile phones or their base stations.

“Thanks to the analysis performed inside the programme, we can now be a lot much more assured about the safety of present day telecommunications methods.”

The £13.6 million MTHR programme has been jointly funded by the United kingdom government and the telecommunications sector.

All through its existence, the programme has been overseen by an independent committee to guarantee that none of the funding bodies could influence the outcomes of the analysis.

In spite of the findings, Professor Coggon warned that there are even now some inquiries to be answered about the affect of mobile phone use on well being.

He explained: “There is significantly less uncertainty linked to mobile telephone use now so we have much less cause to be concerned.

“Even so you cannot rule out the posibility both that something may possibly happen in the prolonged phrase but not be manifested in the early years of mobile phones, or that there us something subtler that doesn’t show up in the studies that have been carried out up right up until now.”

The MTHR has supplied funding to set up a new research which will search at long-term mobile cellphone use.

The COSMOS research will follow one hundred,000 long-phrase mobile phone consumers to see if there are any delayed adverse effects linked to mobile mobile phone use.

Mobile phones "pose no well being risk"