A patient hotel provides accommodation for patients, and often their family, who need to be close to a hospital, but do not need a hospital bed. They are usually in the grounds of a hospital, and are used by people who are recuperating or awaiting treatment.
Patient hotels are common in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The first in the UK was opened in 1994 at Nottingham City Hospital. The Coxa centre in University College Hospital Tampere, Finland for joint replacement makes extensive use of patient hotels and has a very high rate of day case surgery. NHS England is reported to be considering the possibilities of using them to ease demand on hospital beds, including provision for the 30,000 patients each year who are kept in hospital despite being well enough to be discharged.
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust uses the Cotton Rooms Boutique Hotel, which is funded by the UCLH charity to house some patients, as even in central London they are less than half the cost of a hospital bed.
The Ronald McDonald House Charities provide 322 Ronald McDonald Houses in 57 countries which act as a place to stay for families with hospitalized children who are receiving treatment.
The patient hotel model used in Norway is now to be tested by Medirest at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, where they have formed a partnership with Snoozebox to develop a modular design.