Domiciliary care ‘bridging service’ to be expanded
CARERS are to be recruited by a health board to help get elderly and frail patients out of hospital and back home.
The problem of medically fit patients who need support at home getting stuck in hospital beds is becoming acute because of a shortage of domiciliary carers, a Hywel Dda University Health Board meeting was told.
Domiciliary care is a council rather than NHS Wales responsibility, but Hywel Dda already has a bridging domiciliary support service up and running. This bridging service will now be expanded. A report before the health board said a “significant extension” was needed.
Jill Patterson, the health board’s director of primary, community and long-term care, said: “We have a significant number of people (in hospital) waiting for care. It is causing harm.”
She said there were currently 51 patients stuck in their hospital beds who could go home if domiciliary support was available.
She said they had been waiting a combined total of 2,110 days between them – an average of 41 days each. This in turn affected how many new patients could come into hospital.
Ms Patterson said the health board would not be taking over the social care responsibilities of the region’s three council areas - Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion - and that the extended provision was fixed until March 31 next year.
Independent health board member and Carmarthenshire councillor, Gareth John, asked if there was a potential danger of council care resources being undermined, and also what those in need of support could expect of the bridging service.
The expectation is no or minimal delays for patients deemed ready to leave hospitals, according to the board report. And council carers won’t be recruited.
Joining the meeting was Pembrokeshire Council’s director of social care and housing, Jonathan Griffiths, who said the care sector was experiencing “some really major challenges”.
He said councils were recruiting care staff, but that others were leaving.
Mr Griffiths said the profile of the carer sector needed a big uplift.
Referring to the Hywel Dda bridging service, he said: “Will that NHS branding make a sea change for people coming into a care post? The essential element for us is the role profile.”
Health board chief executive Steve Moore said other health boards were interested in what Hywel Dda was doing, while chairwoman Maria Battle said the bridging service has “actually given people hope”.
The meeting also heard that pressures on hospital services had ratcheted up as the Covid situation continued, combined with a rise in other demands.
As of September 30 there were 41 Covid patients in Hywel Dda hospitals, with six of those in intensive care.
The upshot was delays to planned orthopaedic and paediatric treatment - even some urgent cancer cases have had to be cancelled.
Mr Moore said staff were weary and exhausted.
“This may be the biggest test yet of the pandemic,” he said.
“In the minds of many, and in the media, the pandemic is over. It’s not.”
Director of operations Andrew Carruthers said of the pressures: “It feels like winter.”