The 5,000 bedrooms and more than 1,000 meeting rooms rooms are now available for care workers, NHS staff, over 70s, families and lower risk patients, to allow the most vulnerable patients to be treated by clinicians and help to take the strain from hospital wards. The man in charge of hotel services at Best Western Great Britain, Andrew Denton, said: “Since our offer to help at the weekend we have had an overwhelmingly positive response from our hotels. Local hospitals, councils and local authorities have also been in touch directly asking for help and today we are repurposing our technology and our call centre to manage the interest and the demand. “We would urge the wider hospitality industry to join our cause too. We are serious about helping reduce the number of deaths. 20,000 is too many. If our rooms and our support can be part of the solution that brings that figure down, then we will have done our job. “We would love to plug our supply and support into the NHS system in a co-ordinated and organised manner. Every day counts now for people on the frontline of this crisis, so we want the NHS to know we are here to help.” The 15,000 bedrooms figure makes up over 90% of Best Western Great Britain’s hotels. The group is a membership organisation that is made up of roughly 270 independently owned hotels.
