Trust spends £3m on B&B rooms for patients stuck in hospital

A mental health trust has spent millions this year on places in “bed and breakfast” accommodation in order to discharge inpatients, HSJ has learned.

South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust, which serves four London boroughs, confirmed to HSJ it had spent £3.1m since April for a range of basic bed and breakfast places, and spaces with a specialist housing association, to ease its bed shortage pressures.

The trust told HSJ clinicians were often reluctant to discharge patients to street homelessness, and that people with mental health problems can be more challenging to find accommodation for.

The trust’s chief executive officer David Bradley told HSJ system leaders had been asked to think “innovatively” about how to mitigate discharge problems. B&Bs are generally a cheaper and more appropriate alternative to a £500 a night mental health hospital bed for people who don’t need acute treatment and have no housing, he said.

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Source: HSJ, 24 January 2023