NHS Shindigs in Hotels: Hospital Beds vs. Hotel Spreads
By Anna Mikhailova | Updated: 17:15 EDT, 26 August 2023
NHS hospitals are tossing stacks of cash at hotel rooms. A wild move, man, but The Mail on Sunday dug up the truth. These NHS cats are shelling out millions for hotel stays, all to make space in their overcrowded hospital cribs.
Some NHS peeps are forking over more than £2 million per year just to put patients up in hotels while they get their medical jig on.
This bizarre maneuver is a post-Covid twist. Hospitals are doing this fancy footwork to stretch their bed sheets and free up some room for the sickest cats.
City slickers in London ain’t alone in this motel party. Hospitals in Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne, Southampton, Devon, and Manchester are all tapping into this hotel deal to get more headspace.
Listen up: seventeen NHS groups across the nation are hopping on the hotel train. They’re checking patients into hotels, not for a weekend getaway, but for treatment or recovery. This hot intel came from Freedom of Information Act requests to 140 of these NHS joints.
Oh, but wait, it’s not just a one-time spree. These cats have already racked up a tab of £10.7 million since 2020, and that’s not even the end of the binge.
This is the first time the price tag for this crazy scheme is getting airtime. It’s like a backstage pass to a rock show. The NHS posse from Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire slapped down £2 million in 2022-23 to get 324 patients a hotel ticket, up from £1.68 million the year before.
The deal, man, is that these patients are “fit to groove” and they’re just hangin’ out in the hotel lobby, waiting for some “next-step” action.
But they’re keeping this hotel’s name under wraps. Can’t blame ’em, you know? If they spill the beans, the joint might start getting too crowded.
Now, dig this: the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust blew £2.2 million on hotels for cancer warriors getting treatment in 2022-23. The year before that, they dropped £982,787.
The cool cats over at UCLH are all about this laid-back approach. They’re sending their patients to chill in a “home away from home” instead of chaining them up in the hospital. It’s all about giving these cats a different groove for treatment.
So, here’s the deal from the NHS bigwigs: they’re all about finding the right groove for their patients. Sometimes these cats need the rockstar treatment, and hotels are the ride they’re takin’. It’s all about dodging the crazy travel costs, and letting these folks jam with their loved ones while they bounce back.
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