Nearly 300 hospital beds in Leeds blocked due to a shortage of care workers
Nearly 300 hospital beds in Leeds are being blocked due to a shortage of care workers.
Many people are waiting to go into care homes, rehabilitation beds, and to home care, but because of a lack of staff, they can't be moved out of hospital.
There's currently 63 people waiting for a rehabilitation bed, 67 waiting to go into a care home and 47 waiting for support in their own home.
Fiona Venner, Cabinet Member for Children & Adult Social Care, said:
"Retail pays genuinely over £10 an hour and you discount on your shopping if you work in a supermarket, and we just can't compete with that in care.
"Running up and down an escalator - that's how it feels at the moment.
"It is a crisis and ultimately care workers who are doing a really skilled job and a really valued job, need to be given a wage that reflects their value and their expertise.
"The people suffering the most, are the people with the most acute needs. Because care homes, for example, where they're short staff, they're saying 'no, we can't take people with the most complex dementia, we can't take people with the highest care needs'.
"They're cancelling cancer operations, hip replacements, because they can't have people in hospital for elective operations, when beds are filled with people who don't need to be there, the knock on effect is massive."