NHS patients sent from hospital to the street
Patients with no address were discharged from maternity departments, stroke wards, general surgery, and after treatment for complications caused by HIV, freedom of information data showed
Gripping a bag of morphine handed to him by hospital staff, Antonio sheltered at a bus stop, cold and shivering, as he tried to work out what to do. It was three days ater undergoing gruelling surgery to remove his testicular cancer and the 36-year-old had been discharged from NHS care with nowhere to go. He was clutching a referral leter for the council’s housing team, given to him by hospital staff. When he arrived at the council office, he explained he had been homeless for the past few months — but was told they could not house him. “They asked me: ‘If you are in so much pain and trouble, why did they send you here?’ and I didn’t know what to say,” Antonio, whose name has been changed, tells The Independent. He was given a piece of paper with a phone number on it and told to call the next day.
It was now late in the aternoon and the Salvation Army’s homeless day centre, where he would usually go for help, was closed. He had no option but to turn around and ready himself for a night on the streets. Antonio’s story is, tragically, not unique. He is one of thousands of people across England who have been discharged from NHS hospitals into homelessness in recent years, many while still batling serious health conditions. Data obtained by The Independent, in collaboration with the Salvation Army, shows at least 4,200 people were discharged from wards to “no fixed abode” in 2022/23. According to the figures, which came from FOI responses from around half of NHS trusts, there were another 1,461 occasions that people were discharged in this way, but the data does not reflect whether these were individual cases or repeat patients.
The shocking statistics show patients were discharged from a range of wards, including maternity departments, stroke wards and general surgery. Some had recently undergone treatment for complications caused by HIV. These patients may end up in B&BS, sofa-surfing or in temporary hotel accommodation. But many will end up on the streets. Government data released this month shows 82 people who let hospital in England in the last 85 days were recorded as sleeping rough in December 2023. That number stood at 100 in October last year. MPS have now called on the government to “break the link” between rough sleeping and discharge from public institutions — such as hospitals, prisons and asylum seeker hotels — as the figures give a harrowing snapshot into the homelessness crisis facing Britain.
Shadow homelessness minister Mike Amesbury warned those most in need are “falling through the cracks” as care and housing agencies were not working together. ‘It was the worst night of my life’ — Antonio Antonio became homeless in the summer of 2023 ater spliting up with his girlfriend and struggling to find a new place to live. With nowhere to stay, he gave up his job as a machine operator in a factory.
He soon became a regular at a homeless shelter run by the Salvation Army. It was the staff there who sent him to hospital when he told them he was experiencing swelling and pain in his testicle. Before going in for his operation, Antonio had thrown his sleeping bag over a fence near the local Asda, where he had been sleeping rough for several months, to keep it safe. He liked the spot because it was just far away enough from the city centre for him to be let in peace. He preferred to sleep alone, away from others who could steal his belongings or atack him — something he had experienced in the past. However, ater being discharged, Antonio was too ill to climb over the fence and retrieve his belongings. “It was the worst night of my life,” he tells The Independent.
Antonio decided to sit at the bus stop until he could find help in the morning. He was in considerable pain but didn’t want to take the drugs he had been given in case he fell into a deep sleep and could not keep himself safe. “It was very, very hard, the pain. They gave me maybe 10 days’ worth of morphine but I knew I needed to be awake so I could get myself back to yhe Salvation Army the next morning,” he says. “God bless there was no rain, but it was not warm at all.” He goes on: “If you fall asleep somewhere that people walk past you never know what will happen to you. I couldn’t get to the place where I used to sleep, where no one would see me, so I was just siting there waiting. I survived till morning.”
Jillian Franks, project manager at the shelter, was able to step in when Antonio turned up the next day. She says she contacted the council’s social services team, who were able to help where the housing team wasn’t, and they found Antonio a B&B for two nights. Antonio is now living in a care home and has gone through five rounds of chemotherapy. Caseworkers have helped him claim benefits and he is certain he won’t be going back to the streets. Patients released ater treatment for strokes, HIV and swelling on the brain
According to data uncovered by The Independent, of the 4,196 people discharged from hospital to no fixed abode in 2022/23, more than a quarter — 27 per cent — were readmitted as a patient within six months of their discharge. Shockingly, the figure is likely to be much higher as only 98 of around 200 NHS trusts responded to requests for information. The figures are also likely to be an underestimate as, where trusts said the number of people was less than five, we counted that as just one patient.
Recording a patient as having no fixed abode acts as a good indicator of the number of homeless people being treated but it is not a perfect record. Some homeless people may give an old address, oten out of shame, which means they won’t be recorded in the data. Likewise, some people might be recorded as no fixed abode if they came into hospital unconscious or in chaotic circumstances.