‘Discharge patients, even if it’s not good for them’

PATIENTS are being turned out of their hospital beds before they have fully recovered, according to a leaked email from an NHS boss.

A memo flagged as ‘Red Alert Status’ was issued to doctors and nurses at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, urging them to discharge patients even if it was known not to be in the patients’ best interest.

The email, sent last month by an NHS Grampian executive to all staff, urged them to identify patients who could be moved out – even if this was deemed ‘clinically suboptimal’. Malcolm Metcalfe, the health board’s acute sector associate medical director who wrote the email, also ordered non-urgent scheduled operations to be postponed.

The memo, sent on December 13, said: ‘Dear Colleagues, ARI [Aberdeen Royal Infirmary] is now extremely busy with an accumulating backlog of patients requiring admission. Can I please ask you to try and identify patients ASAP who can be boarded to other areas even if this is deemed clinically suboptimal? Please also consider sending patients home if possible. Any non-urgent elective admissions will need to be deferred. Patient safety, however, remains paramount.’