NHS bed blocking is blamed for 8,000 deaths a year

UP TO 8,000 deaths a year may be caused by “deadly” levels of NHS bed blocking, the first study into the matter has found.

Researchers examined a surge in deaths in 2014-15, the biggest in 50 years – with almost 40,000 more casualties than normal.

The study linked the higher mortality rates with soaring levels of bed blocking, which has risen by 50 per cent since 2014 for acute patients. The team from the universities of Liverpool, Oxford, Glasgow and York found increased delays for patients in 2015 were associated with up to a fifth of the increase in mortality levels – amounting to almost 8,000 deaths a year. For each additional acute patient whose discharge was delayed, they found an increase of around seven deaths.

Dr Mark Green, of the University of Liverpool, said: “Since 2014, the number of patients admitted for acute conditions who were delayed being discharged from hospital has almost increased by 50 per cent.

“This creates blockages in the NHS where beds are not available for new patients, and since these individuals are being admitted for acute and often pressing issues, any delay to accessing services can be deadly.”

The study was observational, so it could not prove a link between rates of bed blocking and increased mortality.

But researchers said other explanations such as flu, the ageing population and random fluctuations could not fully explain the trends.

“While mortality rates fluctuate year on year, this was the largest rise for nearly 50 years and the higher rate of mortality has been maintained throughout 2016 and into 2017,” the authors wrote in the Journal of Epidemiolog y and Community Health.

They added: “Issues within the NHS are being compounded by problems with the provision of adult social care to support individuals leaving NHS care and pressures of increased demand.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “Whilst the results of this research are limited, we are clear that no one should have to stay in a hospital bed longer than necessary. Both the NHS and local authorities have set ambitious targets to tackle this issue, supported by an additional £2 billion of funding for social care from this Government.” Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, is set to write to about 30 local authorities which have not made significant improvements on so-called delayed transfers of care and threaten to nationally direct how the councils use millions of pounds of social care funding next year if they do not improve, the Health Service Journal reported.

A total of 577,195 hospital bed “days” were lost through delayed transfers between December and February, compared with 471,780 in winter 2015/16.