Private Lancashire hospital has hand gels and paper towels stolen

Blood pressure monitors have also recently disappeared from the Greater Lancashire Hospital on Wyder Court in Ribbleton.

Its parent company, Bespoke Healthcare, earlier this week wrote to the NHS trust which runs the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble hospitals to offer to see more of their routine day surgery cases and outpatients to free up space for an expected increase in coronavirus cases.

The majority of the work undertaken by the facility is already carried out under a contract with the NHS.

Managing director Gwam Rajiah described the thefts as “disgraceful”.

“We are currently working tirelessly to relieve the pressure on the NHS, whose priorities are understandably with managing the current outbreak. Our hospital is therefore seeing many more outpatient and daycase patients.

“Unfortunately, some patients have taken it upon themselves to steal resources from our hospital – including paper towels, hand sanitisers and blood pressure monitors. This has led to our company having to source new heated hand dryers and we are now installing CCTV.

“It is a sorry state of affairs when certain individuals use this difficult time to act in such a selfish manner – potentially jeopardising my staff and other patients’ health and well being,” Mr. Rajiah added.