The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Bed-blocking costing Scottish NHS £110m
Costto NHS Tayside and Fife is £16 million
Bed-blocking has cost the NHS nearly £16 million in Tayside and Fife over the past year, according to new figures.
At cash-strapped Tayside, the £9m bill for delayed discharge would have been enough to clear the projected 2017-18 deficit twice over.
A Labour MSP accused the SNP administration of inflicting damage on Scotland’s social care system, which is key to tackling bed-blocking, by slashing council budgets.
There were 71,780 bed days lost to delayed discharge in Courier Country between September 2016 and August 2017, the latest official figures available show.
Colin Smyth, Labour’s social care spokesman, said: “The SNP promised to abolish delayed discharge. Instead it has cost our health service more than £100m in the past year.
“The system is unsustainable. The SNP Government cannot continue to slash the budgets of local services that people rely on and not expect it to have a knock on effect to our health service.”
NHS Scotland estimates it costs the taxpayer £214 for each day a bed is occupied by someone who does not need to be in hospital.
The bed-blocking bill in Scotland for the year is £110m, according to a Labour analysis of Scottish Government data. In Fife, the figure is £7m. Delayed discharge occurs when a patient remains in hospital despite being medically fit to leave.
It often arises when the community care system is not ready to look after them.
Health chiefs at Tayside expect to post a £4m deficit this year, meaning the Scottish Government has to step in yet again with an emergency loan.
The health board says it must find savings of more than £200m over the next five years.
Health Secretary Shona Robison said delayed discharge fell by 8% between August 2016 and the same month this year.
She said the Government is tackling the issue by integrating health and social care and making the profession more attractive.
“This year, almost half a billion pounds of additional investment will go into social care and integration while the health revenue budget will increase by almost £2 billion by 2021,” she added.
Health boards and local partnerships in Tayside and Fife say they are training extra staff and increasing community support to prevent unnecessary admissions as part of the effort to ease bed-blocking.