An NHS hospital in London has been condemned after staff threatened to charge a vulnerable pensioner £582 per night if she refused to give up her hospital bed.
The incident occurred at the Princess Royal hospital in Orpington, southeast London, where four staff members are said to have surrounded the elderly patient in an attempt to intimidate her into leaving.
The hospital, which is struggling amid a major flu outbreak and plummeting temperatures, has since apologised for the incident, admitting staff were wrong to suggest charging the patient.
The pensioner, who reportedly weighed around five stone and suffered from emphysema and a chest infection, was living alone at the time of the incident.
The incident occurred at the Princess Royal hospital in Orpington
Despite her requests for time to arrange care and transport, hospital workers insisted she must either pay up or vacate the bed.
A visitor to the ward who witnessed the confrontation said they were “gobsmacked” as four hospital staff members surrounded the vulnerable pensioner.
Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, labelled the hospital’s actions “callous behaviour” and warned it could be “the tip of the iceberg” in terms of strong-arm tactics being used to free up hospital beds.
“An old, frail and sick lady, with no social care support at home, being threatened with a huge penalty fine if she does not relinquish her bed, says it all about the critical state of the NHS,” he said.
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Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, blamed the Health Secretary for the situation
PA
Reed blamed Health Secretary Wes Streeting for the situation, saying social care reform had been “kicked into the long grass”, leaving elderly patients forced home without adequate support.
The Princess Royal’s parent trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, has seen flu patient numbers surge dramatically over the past month.
NHS England figures show the Trust had an average of 52 beds occupied daily by flu patients in late December, compared to just 12 in November.
The Trust is also grappling with bed-blocking issues, with an average of 88 patients per night in December who were medically fit for discharge but unable to leave.
Only 56 per cent of patients ready for discharge actually vacated their beds on a typical day last month.
The crisis has impacted ambulance response times, with over a quarter of ambulances facing delays of more than 30 minutes when transferring patients to A&E.
A spokesman for King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust apologised for the incident, saying: “Staff incorrectly suggested that the patient would be charged for the ongoing cost of their hospital bed.”
The Trust said charging patients would only ever be considered in “very rare and exceptional circumstances”.
Such charges would only be contemplated where a patient with no further medical needs “has repeatedly, and over a concerted period of time, refused to leave hospital, despite being well enough to do so, and having the appropriate support mechanisms in place.”