Covid is paradoxically keeping recovered patients in hospital
SOME patients who have recovered from Covid-19 are struggling to be discharged from Nottinghamshire’s hospitals, it has been revealed.
It has become increasingly harder to get some patients out of hospital, despite them not needing to be in a bed, as the pandemic has progressed.
This is due to some patients needing a package of support in place such as with a care home, or through social services, before they can leave hospitals.
But over the course of the pandemic, Covid has affected these services to a greater degree, medical bosses explained.
It comes as Nottinghamshire’s hospitals face an overwhelming demand with coronavirus patients in wards this winter.
Some general surgeries have had to be postponed during the busiest time for the health service as staff have to be moved to treat the sickest patients with the virus.
Dr Keith Girling, medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust told the Post: “Patients when they leave hospital do so in a number of pathways. Some of our patients are able to go directly home and they’ve got the support there.
“Other people need a supportive discharge and they need social services support, they need packages of care, access to care homes.
“Covid has affected not only the hospitals but the care homes. It has not only affected healthcare staff in the hospitals but also out in the community too.
“And so we know that care homes
The Post has been granted exclusive access to our hospitals’ wards to reveal the true extent of the impact of Covid-19. Here our hospital directors describe the difficulties of getting some recovered Covid patients back home despite them not needing a bed. BEN REID reports, with photography from JOSEPH RAYNOR
have had significant amount of patients with Covid through the last year.
“All of that puts an incredible strain on the pathways where people need that supported help on their way out of the hospital and the safe space for patients to stay in is in hospital.”
Dr Girling recognised the challenge of how patients not needing to be in beds were causing a strain on services.
He added: “But of course, if we have 100 patients in the hospital that could be in the community, that’s effectively three of our wards that are filled with patients who we are waiting to be able to get into another safe space for them and their care to continue.
“In the first wave our community partners worked really hard with us and we managed to get the number of patients waiting for those community beds down to really low levels - the lowest we’ve ever known in this organisation.
“That really freed up capacity for us to take the patients that are coming in and also to maintain some care for patients that are not Covid patients.
“That has proved increasingly challenging with time as Covid has affected all of those areas to a greater degree. We’re working hard with partners to keep that flow going of patients moving through hospital into the community - but this is really challenging.”
Dr David Selwyn, medical director at Sherwood Forest Hospitals said patients not needing to be in hospital would have a worse impact on them than getting them home.
“If you’ve got 100 new patients coming in each day you need 100 going out each day,” he said.
“We all recognise as soon as patients have got through their acute illness and are no longer needing the acute care in the hospital through oxygen or medication then we need to start thinking about actually getting them home where it may be paradoxically safer for them because we’ve got high levels of Covid within our organisations.
“As soon as we admit patients, we will start to be thinking about their discharge. Getting them home is the key bit.