Vital NHS funds – in the region of £300,000 – have been spent by a NHS Trust in Norfolk on private hospital beds that weren’t used. The ten beds were hired out by the Trust from the private Spire hospital as part of a wider contract between mid-March and mid April this year and a further five beds from mid-April to 19 July. The idea behind the scheme of hiring in help from the private healthcare sector is to relieve pressure on NHS facilities and this is something that has been used across various areas of the health service. However this particular deal has been criticised, not only because of the cost of beds that were never used, but because the cost of them were considerably more than the average cost of NHS beds. These Spire hospital beds are costing an average of around £392 each for every day of the contract, compared to between £180 and £270 for NHS beds.


Taxpayers are ultimately the ones who suffer from wasteful expenditures like this. The money that was spent on the help of private healthcare providers could have been spent on improving NHS facilities, treatments or hiring the staff that would have meant they didn’t need to use private beds in the first place. Norfolk NHS Trust say that the beds were hired at a particularly busy time for the hospital, and that after the first month the number of beds were reduced to five as they weren’t being used. They reassure that all beds are being used now, but some people may simply find the fact that this NHS Trust can’t keep up with demand at busy times a reason to get a quote for private medical insurance. We do not choose when we fall ill, and this could fall within the busiest time of year for an NHS hospital where facilities are tightly stretched.