14,000 bed blockers will spend Christmas in hospital
Care crisis means patients fit for discharge have no place to go
MORE than 14,000 people will be stuck in hospital on Christmas Day despite being medically fit to go home, analysis suggests.
Growing numbers of patients are being hit by delayed discharges due to a shortfall in social and community care.
And this reduces the number of beds available for those who need them, leading to bottlenecks in A&E and patients languishing in the back of ambulances.
NHS data showed every day last month an average of 13,600 people remained on wards in England despite being ready to leave.
Research by CHS Healthcare, which runs major hospital discharge schemes, estimates this will rise to 14,178 by late December.
The predicted figure would be a 54 per cent increase on the 9,200 patients who needlessly remained in hospital last Christmas.
The statistics have led a top NHS boss to call for an urgent reform of social care.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said the system was in also in desperate need of financial support.
She said: “We can’t fix the serious knock-on effects caused by delayed discharges from hospital without addressing the long-standing challenges facing the social care sector, which is inextricably linked with the NHS.
“Hospitals are struggling to discharge thousands of patients who are well enough to recover at or closer to home, which in turn badly affects timely admissions, including from A&E and the handover of patients from ambulances.”
A record 44,000 people waited for more than 12 hours last month.
And heart attack and stroke victims were left hanging on for an ambulance for more than an hour on average. The target is 18 minutes.
Some paramedics are only able to attend one emergency per shift as they become trapped in long queues outside hospitals.
Sally Warren, director of policy at health charity The King’s Fund, said problems affect both social care and community services.
She said: “There are people in hospital waiting for social care packages...but there might also be aspects of NHS community support they need which are not in place, such as district nursing.”
And Tim Gardner, senior policy fellow at the Health Foundation, said delays have a knock-on impact.
“Addressing these gaps in social care and community health services is needed to break this vicious cycle,” he said.
“But the NHS and the social care sector are both facing significant workforce shortages – with vacancies at around 130,000 in the NHS and 165,000 in social care.
“A comprehensive, fully funded strategy for recruiting and retaining staff is long overdue.”
‘Addressing care gaps is needed to break cycle’