Hospitals to ease bed-blocking by offering nursing care at home

THE Department of Health has promised to free up hundreds of thousands of hospital beds by allowing more people to be treated in their homes.

In the new NHS Mandate for the coming year, the Government promised to reduce bed-blocking to 3.5 per cent, the equivalent of releasing more than 2,000 extra beds a day.

Currently, around 5 per cent of the 137,000 hospital beds in the NHS are taken up by people who do not need to be there, but have nowhere else to go because of a lack of social care.

It means around 7,000 people are forced to wait in hospital when they should be at home or in care homes.

Under plans set out in the mandate, the Department of Health said the targets would be met by “piloting hospital services to people in their own homes”.

A pilot project being carried out by NHS South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group sends patients home as soon as they no longer need care by sending out nurses to help with changing dressings, managing medication, washing and eating.

Jane Mordue, the chairman of Healthwatch, a consumer watchdog, said: “Across England, patients have told their local Healthwatch about the impact that delays and gaps in support when leaving hospital can have on them and their family.

“With growing pressure on health and care services it is more important than ever that people are able to leave hospital with the support they need to get well and stay well.”

The mandate also pledges to roll out evening and weekend GP services for 40 per cent of the country by next year and ensure that all over-75s are given a same-day appointment if they need one.

Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments will also be told they must have met the target of seeing 95 per cent of patients within four hours by March next year, as an average across their local health trust.

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, said: “I am proud of our record levels of harm-free care, but I am clear that more needs to be done to transform clinical standards across specialities, create a strong learning culture and deliver truly high quality services seven days a week. I have been clear that a critical element of patient safety is A&E performance, and equally clear that there have been instances of unacceptable performance in some hospitals in recent months.

“That is why, central to this mandate, is delivery of the NHS’s A&E turnaround plan which should see hospitals return to meeting the four-hour target, supported by £2 billion extra investment in social care and £100 million in capital funding for A&E departments.”

The number of patients forced to wait longer than four months for routine operations will more than double next year, hospital leaders have warned. NHS Providers said squeezed budgets and increasing patient demand meant the health service would no longer be capable of meeting its responsibilities and called on the NHS leadership to set “more realistic” goals.

‘Patients have told… of the impact that delays when leaving hospital can have on them and their family’