Claims hospitals were pressured into home discharges ‘nonsense’
Jeane Freeman has rejected accusations the Scottish Government pressured hospitals to discharge patients into care homes and has denied there was a “secret target” to do so.
At Topical Questions in the Scottish Parliament yesterday, Ms Freeman was repeatedly questioned about correspondence between NHS Scotland and health bosses urging them to discharge hospital patients prior to lockdown.
The letters set out an expectation for hospitals to include a call for a “material reduction in the delayed discharge figures across Scotland”, despite an acknowledgement that it would put pressure on care homes. Delayed discharge, also known as bed blocking, happens when patients are clinically well enough to leave hospital, but are unable to be discharged for reasons such as waiting for a care home place.
Ms Freeman wrote to councils later in the month telling them there was an “immediate and urgent requirement” to increase support and staff capacity in care homes.
She said the letters, released over the weekend following a Freedom of Information request, were“simply government enacting the policy decision” to free up capacity in Scottish hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.
Asked about the letters, she said :“What we saw in that period was additional focus by the health and social care partnerships, supported by the [health] boards, to work through the obstacles in the way of discharge.
“But that in itself do es not contradict the fact that it is always a clinical decision that determines whether someone is ready to discharge, and a multi-disciplinary risk assessment that agrees where they should be discharged to.”
Ms Freeman repeated a section of a statement she made to Parliament in March saying the gvernment was aiming for a “rapid reduction in delayed discharges”, with a target of at least 900 patients sent home or to care homes by the end of April.
She said it was “nonsense” to suggest the Scottish Government had a“secret target” for numbers of patients discharged from hospital, and insisted the decision on whether to take a hospital patient had always been made by care homes.
The pressure on the Scottish Government over hospital discharges follows confirmation that 1,431 untested patients were moved to care homes between 1 March and 21 April, before testing of new care home admissions became mandatory. A Sunday Post investigation also alleged at least 37 patients who tested positive for coronavirus were discharged into care homes.