Bed blocking soars at Walsall Manor Hospital

The number of beds lost due to delayed discharges more than doubled to 148 in 2018 from two years earlier.

It meant that when combined, 4,522 bed days were lost due to people being in hospital when they didn't need to be. That figure was up from 1,473 in 2016.

Bed blocking heaps pressure on hospitals and occurs when patients are medically fit to be discharged but cannot be moved on, often due to objections from relatives or a lack of available space in the social care sector. It means beds are unnecessarily occupied and cannot be used by hospitals.

Data released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed concerns from family members was the most common reason for patients remaining at Walsall Manor.

Walsall Council leader Mike Bird admitted bed blocking can be a difficult problem to solve.

He said: "Hospital beds are extremely important and extremely expensive and where anyone is occupying one when they don't need to we should be looking at it and asking why.

"We need to make sure these people are safe. Sometimes they come out of hospital and go into residential or nursing homes and they need to be assessed and family arrangements made.

"It is a matter of getting these people assessed and out into the community where they belong."

Margaret Barnaby, interim chief operating officer at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, said: "We try our best to ensure timely discharges when inpatients no longer require care or treatment in hospital, this is most often what patients and their families want too. This means that those most sick can get to see our doctors and nurses as fast as possible.

“To help support this, we have developed a discharge lounge facility at the Manor Hospital that aims to help patients get back to their usual place of residence before noon.

“Staff work hard to identify discharges early on and support patients’ families and carers, and our partners, to ensure they can happen as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Sometimes arranging home adaptations for equipment can take longer, than when a patient does not require these adaptations, and individual patients will improve their mobility and independence following a hospital stay at their own pace."

Nick Barker, a director at care home provider Cera Care, which released the data, said “Delayed discharge from hospital is a challenge for the NHS and can mean an unnecessarily long stay in hospital for patients. In some cases, care provided in familiar surroundings can help a person’s recovery. Outcome based support can help in enabling customers to do more for themselves.

“NHS trusts are clearly struggling to deal with this problem of delayed discharge, often despite their best efforts and careful planning. One key thing our research revealed was the important role that partnerships between hospitals and other organisations play in reducing delayed discharge.”