Despite a national bid to clear bedblockers from the Isle of Wight’s only hospital, numbers have got even higher.
Bedblockers are patients in hospital who are medically fit to leave but, with no care in the community in place to look after them, have nowhere to go.
Following orders from NHS England, St Mary’s Hospital in Newport was given a target to clear up to 50% of bedblockers, in Operation Reset, ahead of a potential surge in Omicron cases in January.
At the time of the action, bedblockers were taking up to 30% of the beds in St Mary’s, leading to elective surgery cancellations and an increase in wait times for A&E patients.
On 13th January, the Isle of Wight NHS Trust said there were 62 patients who could leave but did not have care in place to do so but in a recent update last week, after the action, 72 were waiting.
Concerns were raised by the trust in January about finding space in the care sector to house the extra patients, due to a lack of staffing.
The interim head of adult social care at the Isle of Wight Council, Laura Gaudion, said the problem was not a reduction in capacity but an increase in demand.
Speaking at the council’s health and social care scrutiny committee on Monday, Ms Gaudion said:
“When people have more complex needs, the support they need when they leave hospital is higher and we need to reflect that in the support we have available to people.”
The joint action between the NHS Trust, the Council and NHS Hampshire, Southampton and Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group was praised by health bosses at the meeting for working together, finding beds and solutions to the care issues.
Ms Gaudion said it had enabled them to identify quick wins to deliver better services for local people as they leave hospital, without pointing the finger and blaming others.
WOW.. not an issue of capacity, but of demand eh? In other words, we couldn’t discharge 62 patients last week, and this week we cannot discharge 72 but we do, or don’t have an issue with bedblocking? Nice to see politic speak has now spread to our NHS.
Not the patient fault but if council don’t take responsibility and pay for care/open more homes – then others needing hospital treatment might well be denied and themselves become more I’ll or worse. Council have increased our council tax for Adult Social Care yet not funding people who need, instead spending on process constantly assessment and managers.
Adult social care in the community is diabolical I see and hear about so many elderly couples struggling to care for one another with very little help from council in any way or form .
I dread to think where all the money goes for this area that the council rake in
My direct experience of trying to get someone out of hospital, into a nursing home and back home with family was a monumental task, which took much longer than it should have done, with the bodies involved being supremely inefficient and unco-ordinated. Awful.
Think it’s a bit rude calling them bed blockers when it’s not their fault.
Your taking more money from us Isle of Wight Council, about time adult social care is sorted out. Where are our extra funds being spent? Not being wasted on office staff or a consultant being payed extortionate amounts of money so he can tell the council there is a problem?!?!?!