'Worst' hospital trust spends £18k on hotel stays

England's worst performing hospital trust has spent thousands of pounds on hotel accommodation for a team brought in to turn it around.

A response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by news site The Hull Story showed Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust spent £18,477 on overnight stays for interim chief executive Lyn Simpson and her team.

Earlier this month, NHS England ranked the trust in 134th place, putting it at the bottom of its league table of acute trusts.

A spokesperson for Humber Health Partnership, which includes the trust, confirmed to the BBC that the accommodation was in Hull, and added that the team "have been staying in the city to deliver support".

The BBC asked the partnership if it had agreed to provide hotel accommodation for Simpson and the four other senior managers as part of their packages.

It was also asked to state if it felt the amounts claimed were reasonable.

A spokesperson declined to answer both of those questions.

Explaining the hotel costs, the spokesperson responded: "The CEO was asked by NHS England to come to Hull to help understand and address a series of long-standing issues.

"Since then, a small team, introduced with NHS England's support and made up of NHS secondees and senior leaders with decades of NHS leadership experience working in challenged organisations, has worked alongside clinicians across our hospitals and services to bring these issues together for the first time and develop the partnership's first clinically-led improvement plan. They have been staying in the city to deliver this support."

According to the response to the Freedom of Information (FOI) request, seen by the BBC, Simpson – who earns £279,162 a year – has claimed £4,875 for 39 overnight stays in Hull since she was appointed to her role in July 2025.

A breakdown within the FOI response shows four members of the improvement team claimed £4,582, £3,382, £4,206 and £1,431 respectively for hotel invoices between August 2025 and March 2026.

Brendan Cafferty, regional organiser for the Unison union, said: "Clearly there will be a cost involved in improving things at Hull, but the expenses being claimed by the chief executive and her improvement team are substantial.

"Staff and the public will understandably have concerns, so it's vital that the chief executive can demonstrate that the benefits of the improvement team far outweigh these costs."

The health partnership recently entered special measures, while the two trusts that make up the partnership – Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust – are among five included in an "intensive recovery programme".

The health partnership spokesperson said the challenges facing its hospitals "are not new".

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