Hospital bed blocking cases up as patients face discharge waits
About 194 beds a day are occupied by patients in the Black Country and Staffordshire who no longer need to be in hospital, new figures have revealed.
A combined 5,813 days were spent by patients across the region waiting to be discharged or transferred to a different care facility in November – a rise from 5,677 days in the previous month.
Figures from NHS England showed patients at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, which runs New Cross Hospital, spent 707 days waiting to be discharged or transferred in November.
At the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Russells Hall Hospital, a total of 703 days were spent by patients waiting, during the same month.
In November at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust patients spent 494 days waiting, and at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust a total of 661 days were spent waiting.
At the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, which manages County Hospital, in Stafford, as well as the Royal Stoke University Hospital, a total of 1,837 days were spent by patients waiting.
Figures showed Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) – which provides physical and mental health, learning disabilities and adult social care services in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin – saw a total of 1,343 days spent by patients waiting during November.
Meanwhile patients at the Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust and the Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust spent a total of 38 and 30 days respectively waiting to be discharged or transferred.
The reasons for the delays were mixed between problems within the NHS and issues with social care.
Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust chief operating officer, Karen Kelly, said: "The main reason for delays is patients waiting for an assessment to be completed. Other reasons include waiting for a package of care in a patient’s own home, waiting for a nursing home placement and waiting for further, non-acute NHS care.
"It is important for us to ensure that when patients leave hospital they are being discharged to a suitable location where they can be appropriately cared for. Planning for this starts as soon as a patient is admitted and we talk to patients, their families and any carers as early as possible about planning for leaving hospital.
"We work very closely with our partners in social services and the clinical commissioning groups to ensure our patients get the best care in the right place. The commitment shown to this by Dudley Council’s adult social care team is second to none."
Darren Fradgley, executive director of integration at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: "In Walsall we work in partnership with a number of colleagues across health and social care to reduce the numbers of people who are in hospital longer than they need to be. This partnership includes our Intermediate Care Service and Walsall Together with the aim of providing accessible, co-ordinated and responsive care to the thousands of patients who use our services.
“Some patients have complex care needs and while they may be medically fit to leave hospital they cannot go back home or into the community immediately as their onward care and support needs have to be in place first. While this can cause delayed transfers of care our priority has to be to ensure those patients’ safety and wellbeing in the meantime.”
Paul Bytheway, chief operating officer at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, said: "As one of the largest specialised hospitals in the UK we care for some of the most acutely ill patients in society from across a geography totalling three million.
“Working with health and social care partners, we do everything possible to discharge patients to their next place of care as quickly and safely as possible and ultimately we would like more people to go back to their own home.
“We work very closely with all partner health and social care organisations to ensure that we discharge patients to the most appropriate place at the right time and as part of our winter planning we are reducing the time it takes for patients to access community based services who are ready for discharge and in December held a multi-agency discharge event (MADE) in order to ensure those medically fit for discharge patients were discharged home in time for Christmas.”
A spokesman for the Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Trust said: "The trust are currently performing well under the national target of 7.5 per cent for Delayed Transfer of Care (DToC) figures.
"The 38 delayed days recorded during November are related to three individual patients. We will continue to work closely with patients and carers and our health and social care partners to further reduce our DToC and length of stay."
A Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust spokesman added: "The 30 days of delayed transfer of care in November 2019 related to a single patient. Throughout this period, our trust were working with both the local authority, a local Clinical Commissioning Group and social care colleagues to facilitate a safe discharge for the patient.
"The trust’s delayed transfer of care statistics are well below the national target and we will continue to work together with our Black Country partners to ensure patients are discharged safely and effectively.”
