Use of mobile devices by patients in hospitals

We want you to use your mobile device in hospital. It’s an important way of keeping in touch and making use of online resources like the NHS App.

It’s important that when you use your mobile device in hospital you’re careful not to:

• take anyone’s photo without permission, including staff or people in the background of your photos, such as in busy waiting areas
• make video calls in a way that means the other person can see any other patients, visitors or staff members
• make calls or use your phone in a way that disturbs other patients
• use your mobile device around sensitive equipment where there is a particularly high risk of interference.

It is important to remember that taking a photo or video could breach another patient’s privacy and cause them distress.

Signs will make it clear that you shouldn’t use your phone in areas with sensitive equipment. Switch it off or enable ‘airplane mode’. Do not just leave the device on the silent or vibrate setting as it could still affect medical equipment.

As a matter of good practice, the patient or service user should inform you if they plan to record the conversation and out of politeness ask if you are ok with this. For more information about what patients can legally record without seeking permission, and what to do if a covert recording is posted online, see the British Medical Association's (BMA) guidance on patients recording consultations.

Each organisation is responsible for stating its own policies on the use of mobile devices by staff, patients and visitors. However, this guidance aims to promote a consistent and positive approach to using mobile devices across NHS trusts that will underpin these policies and assist with the management of risks.

Trusts should review their policies relating to mobile device use by staff, patients and visitors, including phones, tablets, cameras, video and audio recording devices. The following should be considered.

Patients should be free to use mobile phones in hospitals, including on the wards, where the local risk assessment indicates that such use would not represent a material threat to the safety, privacy or dignity of patients or others. The NHS Constitution outlines patients’ right to confidentiality. A risk assessment should be undertaken to assess the risk of a breach of privacy and confidentiality. There should be ways to mitigate any risks.

Care providers must safeguard and promote the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, whether patients or visitors. Providers must take steps to prevent inappropriate photographs being taken, either of the individuals concerned or of confidential information pertaining to them.

There are clear links to the broader safeguarding agenda and to the actions that trusts are recommended to take in the lessons learnt report relating to Jimmy Savile. This includes the recommendation that trusts should, 'devise a robust, trust wide policy setting out how access by patients and visitors to the Internet, to social networks and other social media activities such as blogs and Twitter is managed and where necessary restricted'.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) does not recommend a ban on the use of mobile phones in hospitals. However, a mobile phone can affect sensitive equipment when it is operated at high power in close proximity to such devices. Therefore, the MHRA recommends that trusts develop local policies to reduce the risk of interference to critical device. See MHRA guidance for further information.