[Osem]

So complying with all the 'paperwork' meant that a £4000 bed wound up costing the NHS nearly 10 times that not to mention the time/cost of the whole process!

Surely, when the cost of hiring is such a large proportion of the purchase price it has to be better and much cheaper to just go out and buy the item. If the point of producing/authorising the reports is to save money, surely someone needs to make an initial judgement as to the value of so doing in cases such as this. It doesn't take a mathematician to see that the time taken to do the paperwork etc. will far outweigh the full cost of the items concerned in no time at all. It's maddening!