Help our hospitals recover by boosting health care at home

A RECENT analysis of NHS data shows that patients staying in hospital longer than medically necessary are costing the health service more than £200million a month. These are people who are fit to be discharged but can’t leave because the right care simply isn’t available in the community. The result? Beds taken by people who don’t need to be there, while patients wait in corridors or ambulances for treatment.

- Martin Jones

Ambulances queue as patients who do not need hospital beds are stuck in them

It’s a pattern that repeats itself every winter — one of the most visible symptoms of a health and caré system out of balance. Hospitals are full not just because of seasonal viruses or rising admissions but because our communities lack the capacity to care for people when they no longer need hospital treatment.

A colleague’s 92-year-old mother has been in hospital for weeks. She no longer needs acute medical care yet she remains there because her local authority can’t put community support in place. On her ward of six patients, every bed is taken by an older person with conditions that could easily be managed at home. Six people who want to go home. Six beds that can’t be used for others.

Multiply that across hundreds of hospitals and you see the true scale of the problem.