UP TO a third of cancer patients at a leading NHS trust will be moved out of wards and put up in nearby hotels under plans to save tens of millions of pounds on hospital beds.

Patients staying in privately run hotels benefit by spending more time with their families and they avoid the risk of picking up hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA.

More than 100 patients suffering from cancer or blood disorders at University College hospital (UCH) in London have already stayed at NHS expense at the Radisson Edwardian Grafton, a four-star hotel where rooms cost £168 a night.

Despite the high cost of the accommodation, it is cheaper for patients to stay in the hotel than in hospital. A bed on a cancer ward costs between £500 and £600 a night.

Two other hospitals in the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have transferred patients to local hotels. Patients at the Royal London Homeopathic hospital are being accommodated in the Bloomsbury Holiday Inn and patients from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery are being put up at the Imperial President hotel.

Patients receive chemotherapy, stem cell transplants or diagnostic investigations in hospital during the day and retire to their hotel room, often with a family member, in the evening. Hotel rooms are suitable for patients who are well enough not to need 24-hour nursing care yet still require treatment or daily monitoring.

If patients develop a fever or nausea they are admitted to hospital, where some beds are held empty for this purpose.

Unlike hospital in-patients, those who have hotel rooms have their own en suite bathroom, television and, if they are well enough, can use the hotels’ leisure facilities.

So far the hotel rooms have been rented by the NHS trust as a pilot project, but trust executives have plans to extend the scheme. Robert Naylor, the trust’s chief executive, said: “This pilot is going very well.

“Once we are satisfied that it is safe and that patients prefer it and can call on a doctor or nurse if they need one, our plan is to do this on a much wider scale. I think this could be achievable for one-third of patients and that is what we are planning to do.

“This is not only relevant for cancer care. We are doing something similar with the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, the largest neurology hospital in Britain, to which patients are referred from around the UK.”

One patient stayed at the Radisson Edwardian Grafton hotel for 25 days, at a cost of approximately £4,000. The hospital in-patient bill for the same period would have been about £14,000.

Professor Tony Goldstone, consultant haematologist at UCH, said the drive for cost savings would force the NHS to move towards greater use of hotels. “This is an important new direction for the health service,” he said. “In the NHS we have 40% more patients in hospital than in the US. We have got to make the system work better.

“Instead of wasting money on bed occupancy, this money could go into paying for these expensive new cancer drugs. This will also be applied to cardiac care and diabetes.”

UCH is planning to build a new specialist daycare cancer centre. Once it is open, hundreds of patients will need to be accommodated in local hotels. The trust will either negotiate deals with other chains or build its own hotel.

Several hospitals have opened their own in-house hotels. Last year Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children opened a patient hotel with 30 individual rooms and eight flats.

The hospital saves £150 a night for every child who stays with its parents in the hotel, rather than on a hospital ward.

Additional reporting: Ed Habershon and Tom Baird

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