Patients facing bed block delays 2 years after Robison vow

PATIENTS still have to stay in hospital when well enough to leave – despite an SNP pledge to end delayed discharge.

Health Secretary Shona Robison vowed to ‘eradicate’ the problem two years ago, but hundreds of people are being kept on wards when they should be sent home.

Delayed discharge, also known as bed blocking, occurs when a person deemed medically ready to be released from hospital is kept in. This is most commonly caused by a delay in setting up a health and social care package – such as any modifications needed to a patient’s home, or finding suitable carers.

Yesterday official figures revealed that patients spent the equivalent of 40,246 days in hospital due to bed blocking in February.

Although the figure is slightly down from the previous month, the SNP has failed to deliver on a promise to end the practice by 2016. In February 2015 Miss Robison said: ‘I want over the course of this year to eradicate delayed discharge out of the system and I am absolutely determined to do that.’

Last year, Holyrood passed a bill requiring local authorities and NHS boards to jointly plan integrated health and social care services for adults in the hope this could speed up discharging elderly patients.

Yesterday, Lib Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said there was little evidence this was working: ‘While nobody was expecting change overnight, the integration of health and social care integration has a long way to go before it achieves what was promised,’ he said.

Miss Robison said: ‘Integration of health and social care ensures patients are at the heart of care decisions and receive more treatment in the community, reducing demand for acute hospital usage by reducing avoidable admissions, lengths of stay and delayed discharge.’