A pilot scheme which saw hospital patients treated in a budget hotel cost more than half a million pounds to treat just 36 patients, it can be revealed.
Now questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the scheme, which for three months of this year saw part of the Holiday Inn in Ipswich Road converted into a 'care hotel', with out-sourced staff from Abicare providing treatment to allow patients to be discharged quicker from hospital.
The pilot was led by the Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group in response to unprecedented demand for health services across the region, with staff shortages in the care sector making it more difficult to discharge patients from hospital.
The trial finished at the end of April, with health bosses opting against extending the scheme.
Now, a freedom of information request has revealed the total cost of the trial passed half a million pounds - costing £560,000 in total.
The three-month trial saw 36 patients treated in the hotel, meaning the scheme came at a cost of £15,555 per patient.
The project saw patients discharged from hospitals across the region, with people of an average age of 78 treated for an average stay of 16-and-a-half days.
According to figures collated by Age UK, it costs £2,500 per week to keep a person in hospital - meaning the £15,555 per patient cost, based on the average stay, was around three times this amount.
The care hotel looked after:
- 23 patients from the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital
- Seven patients from the James Paget in Gorleston
- One from the Queen Elizabeth in King's Lynn
- Five from the Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust
Brenda Jones, Labour's representative for social services in Norfolk, said the cost was "shocking" and supported calls for adult social care to be brought 'in-house' by the county council.
She said: "It is an utterly ridiculous amount of money. It works out at more than £900 per patient per day - you can stay at the Ritz for £718 a night and get an afternoon tea and a magnum of champagne.
"This is the reason care should be brought back into house [at the county council] rather than relying on the private sector. That way the costs can be regulated, the staff levels can be better managed and more can be done to make sure care is available so things like this aren't needed."
Alex Stewart, chief executive of Healthwatch Norfolk, said: "It is hard to quantify exactly whether the care hotel was value-for-money as it is not clear the levels of care given and what health condition each patient had as this can have a bearing on the financial cost.
"We welcome the concept of anything which ensured more patients could get a high-level of care through part of the pandemic, but we would want to be reassured that all patients received the best possible help and support.
"Any project like this now and in the future must have transparent and robust oversight so patients and their loved ones know the standards of care are the best they can be, and it is a good use of public money."
A spokesman for the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System said: "The pilot care hotel initiative was launched in February as a short-term measure to help relieve pressures in hospitals by providing an innovative, temporary care facility for people who are ready to leave hospital but need additional care support arranged in the community before they can get home.
"This helped to speed up the passage of patients through our local hospitals and freed up a number beds for those that need more urgent medical treatment, providing a more suitable environment for patients on their recovery journey. This pilot made good use of resources at the time to support those patients in a time of need who required extra care before returning home.
"Considering the national challenges health and care systems have faced over the last two years, it is important to remember that whilst many people weren’t able to go straight home, the Norfolk and Waveney health and care system trialled this new model to ensure such individuals could leave hospital and go into a setting more appropriate for the care they needed as part of their recovery journey."
Analysis
The staggering cost of the care hotel demonstrates how innovation seldom comes cheap.
Clearly, at the time the project was commissioned, there was a desperate need to try and alleviate pressure on our region's entrenched hospitals.
However, it is surprising to learn just how much of a cost this project came at.
It goes to show just how tough things have got for our healthcare system - that it was deemed this measure was necessary despite the eye-watering cost.
It is also something of a damning indictment of how poorly the NHS and social care sectors have been invested in over the years - that they have been allowed to get so close to breaking point that expensive initiatives like these were needed.
Had the system been continually invested in across the years and allowed to grow faster than the demand for it has, commissioners would not be staring down the barrel of such whopping bills for what was essentially, damage limitation.
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