The toll of bed-blocking: 2,600 die stuck on wards waiting for social care
MORE than 2,600 people died in hospital last year while they waited for adequate social care, new figures revealed yesterday.
The social care crisis has prompted a sharp increase in the number of patients dying in hospital after they had been declared medically fit to leave, but before they had a social care place to go on to.
The figure, uncovered by a Freedom of Information request by the Daily Mail, is up 61 per cent in just two years, and shows the human cost of the lack of social care places, which has left thousands of people stuck in hospital every day.
Such ‘ bed-blocking’ is at a record high, meaning hospital beds are taken up by patients who would be discharged if care places were available, or care packages arranged at home.
Campaigners said the figures exposed the ‘creaking’ state of the care system and warned the elderly and infirm were not getting the support they needed, leaving them effectively condemned to die in hospital.
The Mail asked 225 NHS trusts in England how many patients had died in hospital after being declared medically fit to leave.
Last year, 2,678 died while waiting to be discharged, a 44 per cent increase on 2015 when 1,856 died, and a 61 per cent rise on 2014, when the figure stood at 1,660. All of the patients had previously been declared medically fit to leave but had remained on wards due to holdups in organising a care home place or support at home. Experts have warned such patients are likely to be the frail and elderly and that delays expose them to further health problems, including potentially deadly infections in hospital.
Worryingly, the true total is likely to be far higher as more than half of health trusts did not respond, or said the cost of responding would exceed the limit set out in FOI legislation.
One trust, the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, which manages County Hospital in Stafford and Royal Stoke University Hospital, said 485 patients had died while waiting to be discharged in 2016 – the highest figure in England. The trust was unavailable for comment yesterday.
MP Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said the figures were ‘truly shocking’. He added: ‘We need a full independent investigation to discover why in certain trusts the figures are especially, and staggeringly, high.’
Figures released by NHS England on Thursday show bedblocking is at a record high, with more than 2,500 health patients prevented from leaving hospitals each day as there is nowhere for them to go.
The bed-blocking crisis has a knock-on impact on the entire health service as the lack of beds means operations have to be cancelled and patients face long waits to be admitted.
The care system is said to be facing a £2.6billion black hole, and the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank has warned Britain must recruit 1.6million health and social care workers in the next five years.
‘Prone to lethal infections’