ALL patients at Wycombe Hospital will get their own bedside TV and telephone within six months.

The TVs, being put in from the beginning of next month, will also have internet access. The scheme is paid for by the Government as part of its NHS Plan. Patients will have to pay to use the TV and phone.

Members of South Buckinghamshire NHS Trust Board decided to go ahead at once, after hearing they would have to do it sooner or later, so they might as well be at the front of the field.

Director of hospital services David Griffiths said people might ask, with all the hospital's problems, why this should be done. "It is a requirement of the NHS Plan. It would actually represent a demonstrable improvement for those patients who choose to take it up. It would put our trust at the forefront."