Patients caught in hospital for weeks ready for discharge after Tory ‘neglect’

Tory failure to fix the care system means patients are waiting weeks to be discharged from hospital, stark figures show.

Angry care providers have warned “enough is enough” as the Government said the NHS discharge system is “broken”. Almost a fifth of care companies across the UK reported weeks-long waiting times for people to be transferred into their care.

An alarming survey of 568 care homes and homecare firms said some patients are being forced to wait three or more weeks to be released from wards. Experts say this will only get worse without urgent action, with the system left “inadequate and neglected”.

In 2019 Boris Johnson promised to deliver a plan to finally fix the care sector, but failed to do so. Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England – which providers across the country – said the report “clearly outlines a system that is failing and will only get worse unless remedial action is taken”.

He added: “Care providers are frustrated and angry by the lack of a clear and strategic approach to discharge, and the fact that nobody is delivering a national perspective. We are constantly hearing about bottlenecks within hospitals, the root cause of which is often a lack of a clear and strategic approach to appropriately discharge patients.”

He said it’s a product of a system “obsessed with organisations and processes” that’s “forgotten that people and outcomes should be the priority”. Mike Padgham, chairman of the Yorkshire-based Independent Care Group (ICG) said: “This is the latest in a long line of reports that paint a bleak and unacceptable picture for people who need care.

“Enough is enough, the system is in need of reform so that people can get the care they need, when and where they need it.” The survey results show 17% of care services said the average time for a person to be discharged into their care from hospital is one to two weeks.

Around 7% said the average wait was three or more weeks. This is largely caused by confusion over who will pay for a patient’s social care. It was worst in Scotland, the study by Autumna found, where half of providers said discharges took over a week.

And 15% of those surveyed in the West Midlands and 10% in Yorkshire and the Humber said it took over three weeks to get a patient admitted into their care. Labour came to power pledging to address the chronic failures. It has vowed to create a new National Care Service to tackle pressure on the NHS by ensuring swifter discharges.

A Government spokesman said: “Our broken NHS hospital discharge system is blocked by an inadequate and neglected social care system. This Government is committed to reforming the adult social care sector and building a National Care Service to deliver high-quality care across the country and ease pressure on the NHS so it is fit for the future.”

Latest NHS figures, for July, show that across England an average of 22,310 hospital patients a day were ready to be discharged. Of these, a total of 9,984 (45%) were discharged and 12,326 (55%) were not – although not all of them required care services.

The proportion of medically fit patients who were discharged varied massively between regions. The data showed 60% were discharged from hospitals each day on average in Eastern England, in stark contrast to just 36% in the North West of England.

Autumna’s survey found that 93% of care providers would like to see Government reform of the hospital discharge process. Company founder Debbie Harris said: “Our findings are a wake-up call to Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting that the system is broken and urgently needs reforming.

“The pressures are only going to get worse as our population gets older, so we need to fix the system now, before it completely breaks down.” An NHS spokesman said: “All health and social care partners recognise that the current level of delayed discharge is unacceptable.

“We are working closely with colleagues in social care and local government to make improvements, following the successful rollout of care transfer hubs, which help to coordinate care and support for people who need it, alongside our new discharge ready date measure, which records the length of delay once a patient is ready to leave with the aim of reducing it.

“We know there is more to do to improve processes and maintain the appropriate capacity in all parts of the system, and this will be a key priority for us as we go into winter.”