Hospital chiefs have appealed to the public for "wheelie" good ideas to stop essential equipment doing a vanishing act.

Peter Mills, facilities services manager at York District Hospital, hopes clamping won't be necessary in the fight to stop wheelchairs going missing

Nearly 20 wheelchairs have disappeared from York District Hospital in the past year alone. Some have been spotted being used around the city, as a trolley for delivering newspapers - and even for carrying shopping.

Managers at the hospital have already considered schemes like the "coin slot" systems used by supermarkets to keep their trolleys from going missing.

But its head of facilities management, Rachel Macdonald, said they thought the people of York might "come up with something more revolutionary and different" in a bid to keep the wheelchairs where they should be.

She added: "We are asking patients, their families and carers to come up with novel ways to help keep the wheelchairs in the hospital.

"Wheelchairs play a very important part in the day-to-day running of the hospital and with fewer and fewer available we need to develop schemes to keep them on site."

The chairs are used for transporting patients and visitors with access problems in and out of the hospital, and are also kept on the wards for use by patients, nurses and porters to transfer patients around the hospital.

Ms Macdonald said: "No wheelchairs in reception means that patients and visitors struggle to get around the hospital, which can be quite difficult, especially if they are unwell.

"It also means porters waste time looking for wheelchairs while patients are kept waiting."

The hospital's facilities services manager, Peter Mills, said the missing chairs may have cost it between £4,000 and £6,000 in the past year. A good standard chair could be worth between £300 and £500.

He added most of the disappearances seemed to be from the pool of chairs in the main reception. They did regular audits to retrieve them from around the hospital, but never got them all back.

Anyone with an idea on how to stop the disappearances should either contact Ms Macdonald at the hospital or hand in their suggestion at reception.

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