NHS Trust has reported dozens of staff and patient property thefts

Between January 2020 and May 2023, at least 35 thefts of hospital equipment, medicines and patient belongings were reported from Trust-operated hospital sites.

The NHS Trust, which manages hospital sites in Scarborough, York and Bridlington, is seeing an increasing trend in thefts, with a total of six thefts reported in 2020, nine in 2021, 12 last year and eight in the first five months of this year.

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed the stolen items were hospital property, including work cell phones, a hedge trimmer, drugs in the form of adrenaline, as well as iPads, laptops and books.

Meanwhile, several cases have been reported of patients’ money being stolen, as well as Airpods, clothes, handbags and a bank card reported stolen.

The FoI request also found that disciplinary action taken against an individual employee for the theft in 2022 “resulted in summary dismissal.”

A spokesman for York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “We aim to provide a safe place for staff, visitors and patients and fortunately theft is rare.”

“Our security management team takes all thefts seriously and takes active steps to investigate and mitigate incidents of this nature.

“Across the Trust we have also taken a number of precautions to deter theft. These include things like 24/7 on-site security, 24/7 CCTV surveillance and a fully auditable pull-through door system. ”

The Trust stated that it did not centrally record the value of the stolen items and was therefore unable to assess the value of the stolen items.

It declined to provide descriptions of the incidents that involved theft, saying it could “potentially lead to the identification of individuals”, including victims and witnesses to crime.

The Trust spokesman added: “However, given the high number of people who come to our hospitals every day, we can never completely eliminate the risk of theft and we need to balance security measures with the inconvenience caused by patient confinement – and visitor access to our sites.” ”