David Oliver: Hotel chains are no answer to hospital bed crises

Roy Lilley, the ubiquitous health pundit, wrote in January of the need for radical solutions to current NHS crises rather than medical colleges endlessly campaigning for more resources.1

Lilley then set out some big, audacious ideas of his own. One was that, to “get the thousands [of people] marooned in hospital home safely,” we should “Block-book Premier Inns; create step-down care. It’s £45 a night. Include a matron and some care assistants and you’ll do it for £150. Hospitals cost £400.”2

Does this idea bear scrutiny? Who are these patients stranded in hospital, and will it …