Bed blocking rate in Scots hospitals falls by 10%

Bed blocking in Scotland’s hospitals fell by 10 per cent over a year, according to new figures from the February census.

A total of 1,297 people were delayed leaving hospital despite being well enough to be discharged, down 10 per cent compared with the 1,439 people delayed at the census point in February 2017.

The majority of patients – 1,077 – were delayed more than three days.

The most common reason for delays over three days was health and social care issues, followed by complex needs, then patient and family-related reasons.

Figures show that during February 38,394 days were spent in hospital by people whose discharge was delayed.

This is a decrease of 5 per cent compared with 40,246 days in February 2017.