For reducing bed-blocking

Authority now best in Wales

PERFORMANCE in reducing bed-blocking in Cwm Taf has gone from being among the worst to the best in Wales in just a year.

The new Stay Well At Home service, dealing with delayed transfers of care, has caused a drop in the number of people aged 75 or over staying in hospitals for five days or more or being transferred to community hospitals.

Despite an increase in attendance at A&E, there has also been an increase in the number of people who are not staying in hospital because of the scheme.

It has been delivered by the health board along with the social care departments from Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil councils since April 2017 and has also allowed more planned elective operations to take place.

The scheme has led to a total number of 13,146 bed days being avoided for emergency admissions of patients aged 61 and over in the Cwm Taf area.

The potential cost avoidance of the scheme is said to be £1.63m and, with £1.26m having been spent on the scheme over the year, the benefits are estimated to outweigh the costs by more than 28%.

A presentation to members of Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s health and wellbeing committee revealed that the key challenges related to delayed transfer of care were the complexity of cases, the time it takes to carry out assessments, the availability of specialist nursing accommodation, and disagreements with patients or their families.

A multi-disciplinary team made up of health board and council staff was employed to assess patients as they were admitted and they saw 3,457 referrals during the year, with 1,803 assessments completed and 79% of referrals having a response within an hour.

Of these referrals, 78% were discharged from the “front door” and 22% from the wards, with 81% of the referrals being 74 years or older.

A total of 1,632 people were discharged home and 79% of these happened within 24 hours.

New services were introduced as part of the scheme, including the Nursing At Home service, Support At Home service, and the Your Medicines At Home service, which has seen more than 900 staff trained in administering medicine to patients at home.

Chairman of the committee, Councillor Richard Yeo, Labour, said: “It is very encouraging to see a big improvement. There have been big strides. It has made a real difference.”

Councillor Joshua Davies, Plaid Cymru, who works in the health service, said: “It is an absolutely fantastic scheme. From day to day, I’ve seen a change in terms of empty beds. We are now seeing a lot more empty beds. It is an absolutely fantastic service.”

Councillor Michael Forey, Labour, said it was a “really tremendous improvement”.

He added: “It is such an impressive outcome and the whole sense of urgency is very impressive.”

There is now set to be an independent evaluation of the system and work is under way on phase two of the scheme.