Patient who’s been blocking a bed for more than 3 years
A PATIENT in Wales has been waiting three and a half years to be discharged from hospital.
The individual, who has complex health needs, has occupied a bed on a ward for some 1,338 days.
Their identity has not been revealed but they are being looked after by Hywel Dda University Health Board in Milford Haven, South Wales.
Two other patients have each been occupying hospital beds in Wales for almost 600 days – more than one and a half years.
The cases uncovered by the Welsh Conservatives suggest the social care crisis in Labour-run Wales is even worse than in England. The longest recorded delay in England is just over two years and that was an exceptional case in which the patient refused to leave hospital.
Patients usually become stuck in hospital when care cannot be arranged for them at home due to a lack of funding from councils.
Waiting times in the Welsh NHS are also significantly worse than in England and some patients travel over the border to be seen more quickly.
The patient who has been in hospital for 1,338 days has a serious mental health condition, a learning disability and physical issues. They are expected to be discharged in about six months.
Conservative Welsh Assembly member Darren Millar described the delay as ‘truly scandalous’, adding: ‘No patient should have to wait almost four years to be discharged.
‘While bed blocking is extremely costly for the NHS in Wales, the real cost is the quality of life of patients it affects.’
Angela Burns, the Conservative shadow health secretary in the Welsh Assembly, said the figures were ‘shocking and a ‘further indictment of the Welsh Labour Government’s failure to process patients through hospitals and into community care within an acceptable timescale’.
Mr Millar was sent details of the cases in a letter from Welsh cabinet secretary for health Vaughan Gething.
It revealed one patient has been in hospital for 589 days with Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board in Swansea and another for 583 days with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.