Shock as 137 patients die ‘stuck in hospital’
Hundreds wait in wards as there is nowhere to go
Shocking new figures reveal 137 patients fit to go home have died while waiting to be discharged f rom hospitals in Lanarkshire.
And 34 died in Wishaw General between January 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016.
Patients ready for discharge, known as bed blocking, are kept in hospital while waiting for support to be put in place in their own home or a care home.
The data, which was obtained by Scottish Labour under FOI laws, comes as The Wishaw Press revealed last May that plans for a new £ 4million facility to help rehabilitate patients from life- changing injuries on the former site of Belhaven Care Home in Wishaw’s Dryburgh Road had been shelved.
Independent councillor Sam Love said “Old people are going to their grave before their time. They need to reinstate the funding and build a new facility. on the former Belhaven Home..
A total of 683 people died in hospitals across Scotland between March 2015 and September 16, 2016.
Anas Sarwar, Labour’s health spokesman, branded the figures as ‘horrifying”.
He said: “This shows delayed discharges are not just detrimental to patient flow and the running of our hospitals, but that they can be seriously dangerous for the patients.
“The Scottish budget is set to cut £327m from councils who provide social care, which will only make this problem even harder to solve. Fixing delayed discharge will begin to relieve the pressure on our hospitals and NHS staff, allowing for better patient care for everyone – but we can only do that if we invest properly in local services.
Wishaw MSP Clare Adamson MSP said: ‘It is always sad to hear of people passing away in hospital before arrangements could be made for them to return home and be cared for in the community.
“The Scottish Government announced an extra £ 107m funding boost to ensure more people are able cared for safely in their own homes.”
Janice Hewitt, Chief Accountable Officer, Health and Social Care Nor th Lanarkshire, said: “Community services in North Lanarkshire supported a 20 per cent increase in discharges from hospital from 2015 to 2016 for the months of August to November.
“This has been achieved through increases in home care hours, the number of people receiving more than 10 hours of home support and the percentage of people discharged within 72 hours.
“Further work is taking place to tackle delayed discharged including understanding and addressing demand at A& E, earlier notification of relatives and additional staff to carry out complex assessments.
“Due to the level of demand, ongoing reductions in delayed discharges will be challenging. Our ability to achieve further health and social care integration through the North Lanarkshire Strategic Commissioning plan will be crucial in helping to address this. In relation to care home placements, funding continues to be available for those who need this.”
Shona Robison said health boards received an extra £ 3million for the winter in addition to the £ 30m a year allocated to health and social care partnerships to help tackle delayed discharges.