Trust spends £37,000 on taxis in three years

Since October 2014, £36,977.34 has been spent on transporting patients from the hospital, including more than £15,000 in 2016 alone.

That was a huge increase on the 2015 figure of £10,238, but the figure has fallen this year to £8,534 to the end of October.

In a statement, the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust said: “Taxis are booked when no other transport is available and the patient is classed as vulnerable.

“This could be overnight, public holidays when there is no public transport provision, or all the trust vehicles are utilised. We only use one local company from Halifax and one from Huddersfield.

“We will endeavour to transport passengers using our own in-house transport provision but this is not always possible.

“It is commonplace to use a taxi when a vehicle cannot be supplied. We also take into account the length of time the patient would be waiting in a department when they could be in more suitable surroundings.

“The reduction in costs is due to a number of factors including a change in drivers rotas to cover more of the day and tighter controls on taxi spending as a whole.”