Scotland’s health secretary has insisted that a continuing high level of delayed patient discharge from Scottish hospitals is not down to any lack of money for NHS boards and health & social care partnerships.

It comes as figures suggest a steady increase in delays back to pre-pandemic levels could be levelling off. Public Health Scotland statistics show 50,185 days were spent in hospital in October by people who no longer had a medical reason to remain there.

The number of people involved, 1,541, was down 2% on the previous month in the first fall since March of this year.

In Parliament, Humza Yousaf said a significant proportion of the extra £300m winter funding would go directly to social care to help support more people to be discharged from hospital.

“I am meeting the six health boards that have the most delayed discharges, and we are working through solutions and making progress,” he told the Scottish parliament yesterday.

“I have made clear to health boards, funding and finances should not be a barrier to reducing delayed discharges.”

Last month, the Chief Officer of Stirling and Clackmannanshire Health and Social Care Partnership, which is reviewing all care packages due to recruitment challenges, said her team were under enormous pressure.

Annemargaret Black said: “We simply do not have the resource to go out and review everybody’s package of care with the resources that we’ve got…we do need to work hand in glove with the providers.”

Analysis by healthandcare.scot has shown delays relating to consent for new care arrangements accounted for most of the longest waits in hospital.

The small fall in the most recent figures was partially driven by quicker social care assessments, Public Health Scotland figures suggest.

A total of 154 people were waiting for an assessment in October, compared to 195 the month before.

MSPs have questioned whether the Scottish government is doing enough.

Responding to Edinburgh Southern Labour MSP Daniel Johnson, Mr Yousaf admitted the capital faced particular challenges because of a more competitive labour market.

Meanwhile, Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale SNP MSP Christine Grahame pointed out the issue is particularly acute in the Borders:

“As of today, of the 300 beds in Borders General Hospital, seven are occupied by covid patients, but 51 are occupied by those whose discharge is delayed.

“I appreciate the various causes of that but, if we are losing 17 per cent of bed capacity when all the predictable challenges of winter lie ahead, we have an immediate problem.”

Humza Yousaf told the parliament the government is working across the NHS and health & social care partnerships and he hoped progress would continue:

“The number is reducing—last week’s figure was below 1,500, although it is still far too high and I want it to reduce even more.

“We are beginning to see small reductions, but I need them to be far bigger.”

 

Read More: Care workers swayed by NHS recruitment campaign; NHS board asks relatives to help “free up” beds; Delayed discharges return to pre-pandemic levels.

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