THE HEALTH secretary has promised to speed up plans to integrate health and social care services after the new figures showed that one in 13 hospital beds in Scotland are now occupied by people well enough to leave.
According to the NHS data for 2017-18, there were 494,123 bed days lost to delayed discharge, or bed blocking.
Most of those beds, around 69%, were being used by people aged 75 and over.
Patients often have to stay in hospital if they don’t have appropriate care arrangements, either because their home is unsuitable or because they don’t have a place in a care home or specialist facility.
There was some progress, with numbers down 6% on the previous year when 527,099 days were lost.
That meant the daily average number of beds occupied by those waiting leave dropped from 1444 in 2016-17 to 1354.
Between 2016 and 2017, delayed discharge cost the NHS in Scotland £125 million - an average of £234 a day.
There were staggering regional differences in the statistics. 18.9% of beds were occupied by patients waiting to leave in NHS Western Isles while Scotland’s largest health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, had the lowest proportion, with 3.1%.
The Scottish average was 7.8%.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said there was some good news in the statistics, but promised action: “I welcome the further 6% reduction in bed days lost to delayed discharge that we saw in 2017/18. This follows on from a 3% reduction in the previous year and a 9% drop in 2015/16,” she said.
“We want to continue to build on this progress.
“That’s why it is vital that local health and social care partnerships develop a range of community based services with the key aim of keeping people healthy at home.
“The integration of health and social care will enable us to make long-term, sustainable progress to reduce the level of delayed discharge. I have already made clear that one of my main priorities as Health Secretary is to increase the pace of this reform so that more people can benefit.”
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said the cost of delayed discharge to the NHS was “eye-watering”.
“Earlier this year my party uncovered people stuck in hospital for up to 618 days after medical staff had declared them ready to leave.
“Now we know the cost of such an awful wait for just one patient could be in the region of £145,000,” he said.
“These are eye-watering sums of money for what, in this particular case and indeed the majority of cases, is an entirely avoidable problem.”
He added: “SNP ministers must now set out their plans for reducing avoidable delayed discharges and the progress they expect to be made tackling it over the coming months.”
Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health, Anas Sarwar said Nicola Sturgeon had promised in 2015 that her government would end the “scandal” of delayed discharge.
He accused the First Minister of not keeping her word.
“The SNP government’s broken promise is costing Scotland hundreds of millions of pounds each year and putting our overworked NHS staff under even more pressure.”
He added: “The vast majority of these patients are aged over 75.
“The failure to properly tackle the social care crisis and delays in care assessments – the result of the SNP government’s £1.5 billion cut to council budgets – are causing this multi-million-pound scandal.”
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