CAMPAIGNERS have condemned the shocking revelation that patients at NHS hospitals are being charged £2 per hour for wheelchair usage.
Israeli firm Wheelshare has installed “Boris bike”-style docking stations at King’s College Hospital in Lambeth, Hillingdon Hospital in Uxbridge and Bedford Hospital.
Patients can unlock the chairs using a credit card machine. The first four hours are free, but afterwards users are charged £2/hour automatically, a likely scenario with skyrocketing A&E times.
According to the King’s Fund, the four-hour A&E waiting time target has been missed every month since 2015 at a national level.
A promotional video by Wheelshare features a facilities manager lauding the “reduced carbon footprint” of the scheme as chairs “don’t go missing” because they must be docked back into their slots.
Newsletter London Centric, who broke the story on Tuesday, reported that the firm has also started advertising branding opportunities, so patients may soon be paying to wheel around while covered in corporate advertising.
King’s College Hospital told the website that this is something that it would not allow.
Keep Our NHS Public co-chairman Dr John Puntis told the Star: “It is outrageous that such patients should be financially penalised because they have reduced mobility.
“The solution to the problem of wheelchairs is not to outsource it to a private company at the expense of patients, but for the NHS to up its game.”
Dr Puntis said that huge cash pressures on hospitals are driving such arrangements, as is the case with hospital car parking that used to be free.
“Next might be ‘hotel charges’ for those admitted, and so the slow erosion of services (justified by spurious arguments such as ‘reduced carbon footprint’ and ‘increased efficiency’) continually erodes the principle of healthcare being free at the time of demand,” he added.
A hospital spokesperson said that patients using the wheelchairs who experience longer waits are able to have the costs refunded by contacting Wheelshare.
But London Centric reported that “no such option” for a refund was advertised, and that it wasn’t mentioned in texts sent by the firm to patients using the service.
Campaigner Linda Burnip from Disabled People Against Cuts called the hubs “truly appalling.”
“What if someone can’t pay?
“Are they left to crawl around or hounded by debt collectors in the future?”
Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at We Own It said “Our NHS was founded to be a publicly owned, publicly delivered healthcare service, free at the point of use.
“Today patients are being asked to pay to use a wheelchair, an essential part of navigating a hospital if you’re not strong enough to walk. What will it be tomorrow?
“The government has a simple choice before them in the budget and the NHS 10-year plan. Will they properly invest in our NHS and end privatisation, or will they allow more erosion of our health service through profit-taking and underfunding? They have an opportunity to be the government that truly rescues our NHS.”
Wheelshare has been contacted for comment.
