Bed blocking - yet another indication of the failing care system

There's a lot in the media about bed blocking at the moment, with the re-emerging issue of the elderly not being discharged from hospital when ready due to shortage of appropriate follow-on care services.

Between 2000 and 2004, the UK introduced intermediary care services, specifically aimed at providing the care needed to support elderly patients being discharged from hospital.  The local health services worked in partnership with the care services and as a result, over a million acute hospital beds were freed.  More importantly, it meant elderly patients were not stuck in hospital wards, where their risk of exposure to life threatening infections was massively increased, their confidence to be able to cope at home was reduced and their likelihood of ending up in a care home more probable.

So what went wrong?  Why the re-emergence of bed blocking?  Put simply, lack of promised funds and failure to continue the investment.  Other spending priorities emerged and spending cuts needed to be found, especially at local levels.  Social Services have had to redefine people's eligibility to qualify for care services, leaving many elderly ready to leave hospital, unable to care for themselves at home, but not qualifying for any social care.

So spending cuts have resulted in bed blocking costing the NHS millions of pounds a year, putting the elderly at risk and forcing more acute patients to have to wait for treatment.  But the larger problem seems to be the lack of integration of the budgets and management of the health services, the social services and the care system as a whole.  The real urgency for a major overhaul of the way we care for the elderly is escalating...

Read more about the issue of bed blocking in yourcarehome news...

Comments

[Barb The Bunk Bed Plan Girl]

My husband works in the hospital system and he deals with this problem almost every day of work. It is a tragedy and hopefully something will be done soon to assist with the problem.

[Elderly Care]

Thousands of older patients are being forced to stay in hospital long after they are fit enough to leave, doctors are warning – and the problem is being exacerbated by the coalition's cuts to council budgets.

In a survey of 502 doctors working in UK hospitals, 251 (50%) said the problem known as "bed blocking" – which costs the NHS tens of millions of pounds a year and forces needier patients to wait on trolleys – was worse now than a year ago, while 200 (40%) said it had not improved.

The poll was conducted for the Guardian by Doctors.net.uk, an online professional network to which 90% of UK medics belong.