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| Thanks but no thanks, CareRooms. In the NHS we need staff, not beds | Thanks but no thanks, CareRooms. In the NHS we need staff, not beds |
| (3 months later) | |
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| Fri 27 Oct 2017 14.30 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 14.45 GMT | |
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| There’s only so much glumness a secretary of state for health can take. With Newsnight this week featuring harrowing footage of patients stacked up on trolleys in corridors in a Birmingham hospital, thank heavens, then, for the disruptive innovators. These tech-savvy go-getters see pound signs – sorry possibilities – where others only find doom and gloom, by promising patients nothing less than the Airbnbification of the NHS. | There’s only so much glumness a secretary of state for health can take. With Newsnight this week featuring harrowing footage of patients stacked up on trolleys in corridors in a Birmingham hospital, thank heavens, then, for the disruptive innovators. These tech-savvy go-getters see pound signs – sorry possibilities – where others only find doom and gloom, by promising patients nothing less than the Airbnbification of the NHS. |
| That’s right, if the startup CareRooms has its way, soon you too will be able to sleep soundly at night knowing that your granny has been safely discharged from her hip operation into the loving care of someone who clicked on a website, read its top line – “Earn £50 per room, per night as a host” – and couldn’t resist turning a spare room into cash. You just have to commend their entrepreneurial spirit. Some might say “patient safety disaster just waiting to happen”, but I say, get with the digital transformation, people. | That’s right, if the startup CareRooms has its way, soon you too will be able to sleep soundly at night knowing that your granny has been safely discharged from her hip operation into the loving care of someone who clicked on a website, read its top line – “Earn £50 per room, per night as a host” – and couldn’t resist turning a spare room into cash. You just have to commend their entrepreneurial spirit. Some might say “patient safety disaster just waiting to happen”, but I say, get with the digital transformation, people. |
| With a little imagination and new fast food-style, drive-through operating theatres, imagine what the NHS could do? | With a little imagination and new fast food-style, drive-through operating theatres, imagine what the NHS could do? |
| Why it has taken this long to embed the unruly freedoms of the gig economy into the heart of the NHS is anyone’s guess. I suppose doctors are to blame – we usually are – being notoriously sanctimonious killjoys, relentlessly banging on about safety, clinical governance and, worst of all, accountability. | Why it has taken this long to embed the unruly freedoms of the gig economy into the heart of the NHS is anyone’s guess. I suppose doctors are to blame – we usually are – being notoriously sanctimonious killjoys, relentlessly banging on about safety, clinical governance and, worst of all, accountability. |
| There is so much we luddites in the NHS could learn from the giants of Silicon Valley, if only we’d stop fearing change. As someone whose hospital is already part-branded by that global health giant, McDonald’s (yes, the accommodation for parents in my children’s hospital is genuinely named Ronald McDonald House), I can only hope we embrace more of this tantalising NHS-private sector synergy. | There is so much we luddites in the NHS could learn from the giants of Silicon Valley, if only we’d stop fearing change. As someone whose hospital is already part-branded by that global health giant, McDonald’s (yes, the accommodation for parents in my children’s hospital is genuinely named Ronald McDonald House), I can only hope we embrace more of this tantalising NHS-private sector synergy. |
| Only this week, for example, we discovered, via a report helpfully leaked to the BBC, “How operating theatres are wasting two hours a day”. All that precious taxpayers’ cash squandered by those pesky, bespectacled surgeons refusing to race through their operations like they’re on commission. With a little imagination and new fast food-style, drive-through operating theatres, imagine what the NHS could be capable of? Pull in, get your appendix whipped out no time, then be discharged into an UberAmbulance, and taken to recover afterwards in your Airbnb en suite, perhaps with Siri or Alexa dictating your rehab. | Only this week, for example, we discovered, via a report helpfully leaked to the BBC, “How operating theatres are wasting two hours a day”. All that precious taxpayers’ cash squandered by those pesky, bespectacled surgeons refusing to race through their operations like they’re on commission. With a little imagination and new fast food-style, drive-through operating theatres, imagine what the NHS could be capable of? Pull in, get your appendix whipped out no time, then be discharged into an UberAmbulance, and taken to recover afterwards in your Airbnb en suite, perhaps with Siri or Alexa dictating your rehab. |
| Amazingly, after less than 24 hours of national outcry, the hospital partnering the CareRooms wheeze, Southend University hospital foundation trust, pulled out of supplying patients for the pilot. Its deputy chief executive, Tom Abell, stated that while he welcomed and encouraged new ideas and innovation (don’t we all?), “there is no intention, and there never has been, for the hospital to support this pilot at this time”. Which is odd, given reports that CareRooms had already been allowed to set up a stall in the hospital’s restaurant, and were observed handing out fliers to the public. | Amazingly, after less than 24 hours of national outcry, the hospital partnering the CareRooms wheeze, Southend University hospital foundation trust, pulled out of supplying patients for the pilot. Its deputy chief executive, Tom Abell, stated that while he welcomed and encouraged new ideas and innovation (don’t we all?), “there is no intention, and there never has been, for the hospital to support this pilot at this time”. Which is odd, given reports that CareRooms had already been allowed to set up a stall in the hospital’s restaurant, and were observed handing out fliers to the public. |
| There is, of course, a serious problem that CareRooms is hoping to cash in on. NHS figures show that last year, 2.2m hospital “bed days” in England were lost due to delayed transfers of care. But the reason for this epidemic of patients marooned in hospital beds is our catastrophically underfunded social care sector. CareRooms’ blurb about “transforming spare rooms and annexes into secure care spaces” for these patients entirely misses the point. Trained staff – carers – are what the sector lacks, not physical spaces in buildings. Urgent investment in trained, regulated carers is the only safe way to address this, not outsourcing the problem to random homeowners with no clearly defined standards for safeguarding, clinical governance and infection control, not to mention other risks to patients who are at their most vulnerable. | There is, of course, a serious problem that CareRooms is hoping to cash in on. NHS figures show that last year, 2.2m hospital “bed days” in England were lost due to delayed transfers of care. But the reason for this epidemic of patients marooned in hospital beds is our catastrophically underfunded social care sector. CareRooms’ blurb about “transforming spare rooms and annexes into secure care spaces” for these patients entirely misses the point. Trained staff – carers – are what the sector lacks, not physical spaces in buildings. Urgent investment in trained, regulated carers is the only safe way to address this, not outsourcing the problem to random homeowners with no clearly defined standards for safeguarding, clinical governance and infection control, not to mention other risks to patients who are at their most vulnerable. |
| “We’re not going off half-cocked,” said Dr Harry Thirkettle, CareRooms’ medical director, despite the NHS regulator, the Care Quality Commission, having no record of the startup. Meanwhile, his company’s website promises participants that no care experience at all is required to earn “up to £1,000 per month renting out your spare room”. | “We’re not going off half-cocked,” said Dr Harry Thirkettle, CareRooms’ medical director, despite the NHS regulator, the Care Quality Commission, having no record of the startup. Meanwhile, his company’s website promises participants that no care experience at all is required to earn “up to £1,000 per month renting out your spare room”. |
| Sure. Because what could be safer than a cut-price, NHS-lite, human warehousing scheme for vulnerable, frail and elderly patients? | Sure. Because what could be safer than a cut-price, NHS-lite, human warehousing scheme for vulnerable, frail and elderly patients? |
| • Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor in Oxford and author of Your Life in my Hands, a book about life on the NHS frontline | • Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor in Oxford and author of Your Life in my Hands, a book about life on the NHS frontline |
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