Social care backlog behind A&E waiting times, says emergency consultant

More must be done to tackle bed blocking in hospitals, if A&E waiting times are to be brought down, according to an emergency consultant at Hairmyres Hospital in Lanarkshire, where they are warning of 12 hour waits.

The health board's asking people not to attend unless it is a life-threatening emergency and Doctor Calvin Lightbody says it is down to poor planning on a national level.

He told Clyde News: "At minute the whole health system is completely locked down and that's why we're seeing the extremely long waits at the the front end of the hospital.

"We've had a high number of resignations"

"We need an urgent address of the social care situation, we need urgent action to get social care provision for those people who are ready to be discharged from hospital and can't get out of hospital because of lack of that social provision.

"Once we can unlock that exit block from the hospital, we start to get flow again. Any department works well whenever we've got flow, whenever we've got beds to move the patients to that means we've got space to bring patients in from the waiting room and then we can actually function reasonably well.

"Because it's been so bad for so long, many of my staff are starting to look elsewhere. We've had a high number of resignations. We're very dependent on locum staff and bank staff. And really that situation is not sustainable. Unless this the culture and the work environment improves, I'm afraid that trend will continue.

"I know of several people who are considering leaving emergency medicine due to the sustained, difficult task pretty much every shift. It's been particularly bad recently. But certainly that trend does seem set to continue unless urgent action is taken."

“Significant additional funding has been allocated"

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said: “We are working with health and social care partnerships to reduce delays in people leaving hospital. It is critical that people are cared for in the right setting and that vital hospital beds are there for those who need them. Being at home or in a community setting is in the best interests of anyone who no longer has any clinical need to be in hospital.

“Significant additional funding has been allocated to support social care, including £62m to enhance care at home capacity; £48m to increase the hourly rate of pay; £40m to provide interim care arrangements; and £20m to enhance multi-disciplinary teams.

“Funding is also being used to rapidly scale up Hospital at Home services, which aim to reduce acute admissions and support timely discharge. A further £3.6m funding has been made available in the 2022/23 budget to support the further development of Hospital at Home across Scotland.

“We are seeing record numbers of patients delayed under the adults with incapacity legislation. These are patients who, although clinically ready for discharge, cannot be legally discharged without a court appointed guardian being in place. We employed an experienced senior mental health officer to work with partnerships to identify the barriers within this legal process at local levels and will be turning this in to an action plan to drive improvement.”

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