THOUSANDS OF PATIENTS SENT HOME TOO SOON

NHS overcrowding crisis as growing number of Scots discharged from hospital early ... then readmitted to wards within TWO DAYS

THOUSANDS of Scotland’s sickest patients have been discharged from hospital too early because of a shortage of beds.

Seriously ill patients are being sent out of specialist care before they are fit to leave, a damning report has revealed.

In some cases, patients are being readmitted to critical care within 48 hours of them being discharged.

The shocking figures come after it emerged yesterday that the number of patients stuck in hospital – known as bed-blocking – has risen, despite them being well enough to leave.

Last night, critics described the revelations as another damning indictment of the SnP’s stewardship of the nHS – with patients in some units discharged too early, while in others they are kept in too long.

Scottish Tory health spokesman

Miles Briggs hit out at the ‘unacceptable’ situation, adding: ‘Ministers need to get a grip of this as a matter of urgency.’

A report by the Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group examined the care of more than 46,000 critically ill patients last year – including 42,887 people who were discharged.

It looked at patients in critical care, which includes intensive care units and high dependency units – the latter are for those who require more care than those on general wards.

Around 857 patients – about 2 per cent – were discharged ‘early’ from critical care in 2016. This is when removal is ‘not in the best interest of a patient but necessary due to pressure on beds or staffing’, the report says.

It also found that around 1.3 per cent of patients admitted to intensive care, and around 2 per cent of patients admitted to high dependency units, were patients who had been discharged from critical care beds within the previous 48 hours – around 818 patients in total in 2016.

Reports for previous years noted similar figures, meaning thousands of patients have been discharged too early.

The 2016 report states: ‘High rates of early discharges are a concern.

‘If patients are readmitted to the unit within 48 hours after a previous discharge, it can be an indication that the first discharge was early.’

The report co-incided with figures showing that bed-blocking increased last month, despite SNP promises to eradicate the problem. In June, an average of 1,308 Scottish beds were taken up by delayed discharge each day, compared with 1,286 the previous month.

Mr Briggs said: ‘We have this ridiculous situation where in one part of the NHS some patients are being discharged too early, elsewhere others are being forced to wait weeks, sometimes months, in hospital despite being fit to leave... This is an unacceptable position.

‘The critical care report is stark in its admission that these patients are not being discharged early because of clinical error, but due to a lack of resources and staffing.

‘This is yet another indication that poor stewardship of the NHS by the SNP Government is having a very real impact on patient safety.

The hospitals with the highest number of early critical care discharges in the report were Inverclyde Royal Hospital and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

NHS Lothian said the report contained a ‘coding anomaly’ which did not take into account that most patients discharged from intensive care early were sent to a high-dependency unit.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said patients were ‘stepped down’ when ‘safe to do so’, adding: ‘NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde regularly reviews the outcomes for patients in critical care areas.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Early discharge figures are by their definition unplanned and predominantly reflect a need to urgently admit a new and acutely ill patient.

‘Overall, they represent a tiny proportion of the hundreds of thousands of patients discharged every year – but safety will always be the top priority when discharging any patient.’

IF ever a story summed up the pressures on the NHS, it is today’s news about hospital discharges and so-called bed-blocking.

On one hand, thousands of seriously ill Scots have been sent home too soon because of pressure on beds. For many that means a return to hospital within 48 hours – with implications for their health and an obvious knock-on effect for hospitals.

And then there are bed-blockers. These are patients – often elderly – who are medically fit to leave hospital but who cannot return home because the support they need there is not available.

Despite a pledge from Health Secretary Shona Robison to eradicate these ‘delayed discharges’ by 2015, an average 1,308 beds were jammed, so to speak, daily in June, compared with 1,286 in May. It means patients are lingering, perhaps for weeks, on wards for lack of help at home.

Difficult and complex problems to solve, of course. But the SNP boasted of being ‘guardians of the NHS’. They pledged to fight creeping privatisation; promised to ride to the rescue of the NHS in England by voting on English-only matters in Westminster. They offered striking junior doctors in England posts in the idyllic Scottish NHS.

Confronted with the cold, hard facts, this sort of SNP posturing is exposed as so much hot air. Miss Robison’s endless consulting and promises to ‘bring forward plans’ and her ‘commitment to delivering’ leave patients struggling.

The SNP stewardship of the NHS is deeply flawed and Miss Robison bears culpability.