Patient has been waiting 1,338 days to be discharged

A patient with “complex” health needs has been waiting more than three-and-a-half years to leave hospital after being declared fit for discharge, it has been revealed.

The patient, who has not been named, and who suffers from a “serious mental health condition” plus a learning disability and physical health problems, has now been in a hospital bed for 1,338 days, according to a letter sent by the Welsh cabinet secretary for health, Vaughan Gething.

The letter, sent to Conservative Assembly member Darren Millar and shown to the Press Association, was in response to the Clwyd West representative’s call for details on the longest number of bed days lost by individual patients experiencing delayed transfers of care.

In it, Mr Gething lists the longest delays experienced by individual patients at each of Wales’s seven health boards, as of January 2017, and reveals that along with the Hywel Dda University Health Board patient who has been waiting for three-and-a-half years, two other patients in the country have been stuck in hospital beds for more than a year-and-a-half each.