Health boards set for ‘ immediate funding’ to buy up care home beds

HEALTH boards will be provided with “immediate extra funding” to buy up beds in care homes so that hospitals can discharge patients who are waiting for care packages.

Nicola Sturgeon said 1700 beds are currently occupied by people who are medically fit for discharge as she described the current pressures engulfing the NHS as the “most difficult winter ever”.

Further details of the plan – which echoes moves also under way in England – will be outlined in a statement by Health Secretary Humza Yousaf to the Scottish Parliament today.

However, speaking during a briefing on the NHS crisis at St Andrews House in Edinburgh, the First Minister said the initiative would help to “free up capacity” in hospitals by transferring people temporarily into care homes while social care packages are arranged.

Guidance will also be issued to health boards by the Scottish Government this week advising them to consider prioritising “critical and lifesaving care” where necessary, which could include relocating staff or pausing elective activity.

NHS Borders already suspended all planned operations at the end of last week as a result of bed shortages due to patients with flu, Covid and norovirus, while several health boards paused their elective orthopaedic work in December until the end of January to free up beds.

Ms Sturgeon said there were “no easy solutions” but that GP practices will also be encouraged to open at weekends in an effort to reduce attendances at A& E – a policy already adopted in NHS Lanarkshire – with additional NHS 24 call handers also being recruited to help manage medical problems remotely.

It comes after doctors warned conditions are “unsafe” as a result of bed shortages which are logjamming A& E departments and leaving ambulances stranded outside, waiting hours to offload patients.

The First Ministers said hospitals were “almost completely full” with 95 per cent of beds occupied as of Wednesday last week. That compares to 87% occupancy rates pre- pandemic, and the 85% threshold recommended for safe care and infection control.

Ms Sturgeon said the health service was facing “unprecedented” strain from surges in Covid, flu and other respiratory viruses.