The NHS has wasted around £13million as hundreds of beds that were bought for the temporary Nightingale hospitals cannot be used in normal hospitals.
The Nightingale hospitals were built across the country to tackle waves of Covid-19 at a cost of £11million alone to open up.
Only one of the hospitals - the Royal Preston Hospital in Lancashire - has admitted patients.
According to NHS England’s annual accounts released last week, the health service has suffered the huge loss due to the beds not meeting the required standard, MyLondon reports.
Some of the millions of pounds written off include paying for storing the beds.
One of the hospitals at the ExCel conference centre in Canning Town admitted a mere 57 patients even though it opened with 500 beds and a total capacity for 4,000 patients.
A note from the accounts says the loss “relates to emergency beds that were procured for the Nightingale hospitals at the beginning of the pandemic and includes storage costs.
“These were bespoke beds for field hospitals and the order made was based on the demand projections at the time," it read.
"After the closure of the Nightingale hospitals, it was deemed that the beds could not be used in any other existing hospitals as the specifications were not to the current standard as implemented in all hospitals."
The Nightingale hospitals have proven to be expensive.
Overall the Nightingale hospitals, across the UK are expected to cost taxpayers more than £530 million.
Safety concerns at the Nightingale hospitals, which struggled to recruit enough staff, were such that few were used as intended.
An NHS England spokesman told The Times said: “The Nightingales were created to provide additional capacity in case this was needed through the pandemic. This included securing beds that were appropriate for patient use, with local areas using these as needed.”
