Members of the public with no care experience are being offered up to £1,000 a month to rent spare rooms to patients after they are discharged from hospital, under an Airbnb style model to be piloted by the NHS.
A new start up company, CareRooms, is working with NHS organisations and councils in Essex to pilot and finalise how the model will work as it develops “proof of concept” before it goes live.
The principle of the model is to provide a room for “patients who may have had a minor procedure and live alone or whose own families are not able to provide short term assistance post hospital care”.
The company, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, said it would benefit patients, by creating “a safe, comfortable place for people to recuperate from hospital”, and the NHS – by helping alleviate bed shortages and delayed transfers of care.
However, the Save Southend A&E campaign group, whose members include clinicians, has raised concerns the plan “opens a huge can of worms for safeguarding, governance and possible financial and emotional abuse of people at their most vulnerable time”.
Full story in The HSJ, 25 October 2017