Delayed discharge increase leaves Robison’s promise in tatters

The number of hospital ‘bed days’ lost because patients have been delayed in their discharge despite being clinically fit enough to leave has soared under the SNP.

New official figures published today have revealed that Health Secretary Shona Robison has broken her promise to ‘eradicate delayed discharge’.  In August, 45,551 days were spent in hospital by people delayed in their discharge, up from 43,919 in July.  There were 1,472 people delayed at the August 2016 census, an increase from 1,396 in the previous month. Of those, 374 were awaiting a care home place (up from 320 in July), and 359 were awaiting arrangements for social care support (up from 328).

The new data comes just one week after it emerged there are only 22,284 available beds in our NHS – compared to 27,735 when the SNP first took office in 2007.

Scottish Labour’s Health spokesperson Anas Sarwar condemned the SNP’s ‘mismanagement’ of the health service.  He said:

“These figures show that Shona Robison has not only failed to eradicate delayed discharge as she pledged, but the situation is continuing to get worse. Her promise to patients is in tatters.

Behind these dry statistics are hundreds of patients who just wants to get out of hospital.

There are more than 5,000 fewer hospital beds since the SNP took office, so Scots will rightly wonder why we are cutting so many beds when we still have such a problem with delayed discharge.

We all know our NHS staff are doing the best they can under the circumstances, but they are over worked, undervalued and under resourced by an SNP Government that is guilty of mismanaging our NHS.

The cuts that health boards are being forced to make over the coming years will only make this worse.That’s why Scottish Labour has proposed using the new powers of the Scottish Parliament to stop the cuts to our public services, support our staff and deliver for patients.”

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3 thoughts on “Delayed discharge increase leaves Robison’s promise in tatters

  1. The number of beds in the NHS, north and south of the border, has been in decline for 30years at least, under ALL governments.
    Bed blockage seems to be a good deal worse in England, but that is no consolation if you are waiting for admission in Scotland.
    I see again the solution advocated by Scottish Labour is an increase in taxation. Not unreasonable if that money is hypothecated..
    Could Scottish Labour now tell us what increase this will be ( I have seen 1% ), how much it will raise, and where it will be spent —-because it seems the same money is to be spent many times over. Every time there is a shortfall—in education, local government, health, transport, police, infrastructure—Labour say they will spend extra revenue, but do not stipulate where that money comes from. It cannot ALL come from the 1% rise in revenue.

    1. I also want to add that I was in Ayr hospital two years ago for a knee replacement ( ex miner ). I was in and out in two days—the treatment and care was first class from all the staff
      I wonder how long I would have been in a hospital bed, if I had the same treatment ( if it had been available) a few years previously. So things do progress and we should be grateful. The technology improves all the time, but is also very expensive. As more treatments become available, more people enter hospital to get treated, so hospital stays have become shorter to allow that to happen. Each bed in hospital use requires staff to utilise it ( unless we just have one nurse/staff etc for a larger and larger number of beds), and staff costs money. Its a vicious circle, but its a costly solution just to stand still or even to go back to a larger number of beds.

  2. And only today we hear that England’s A&E units have the worst waiting times EVER, bar last winter. This since records began in 2004.
    Wales has a huge NHS financial “black hole”.
    A leaked letter shows NHS England willing to let some GP surgeries “wither on the vine”.
    A&E units in England becoming “dangerous places” to be.

    Thank goodness for Robison!

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