Delays in patient discharges leading to longer ambulance waits, MLAs told

Delays in discharging patients from acute beds is leading to longer ambulance waits for those requiring admission to hospital, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has said.

The minister told MLAs that in one Northern Ireland hospital last week, 40% of the beds were occupied by patients who were medically fit to be discharged.

During ministerial question time, DUP MLA Diane Dodds raised the issue of current pressure on ambulance services.

She said she had received a message stating the “ambulance service is about to call a critical state”.

Ms Dodds said she had also been told there were 160 emergency and critical calls waiting for ambulances which could not be answered on Tuesday.

Mr Nesbitt said he was unaware of the details but would check them when he left the chamber.

SDLP MLA Colin McGrath said he had heard recently from hundreds of families, patients and staff members about long ambulance waits outside hospitals.

He said: “It includes one constituent whose 26-year-old son died last year on her kitchen floor while waiting on an ambulance.

“So can you tell us now, is it you are the wider Executive that is not listening and providing a positive response to this situation?”

Mr Nesbitt said he had recently visited a number of emergency departments and spoken to ambulance crews.

He said: “We are, by and large, bringing down the wait times.

“But that’s not to say there aren’t examples where people are waiting far, far, far too long.

“I met quite an elderly woman who was waiting in an ambulance outside one of the EDs last Wednesday, and if it’s uncomfortable for me, what’s it like for her?

“What’s it like for somebody in their 80s who has several very serious conditions to be lying on a trolley in the back of ambulance and can’t even get into the hospital?”

The minister said the problem was made worse by the lack of capacity for patients being discharged from hospital.

He said: “We don’t have enough community capacity so that there are patients who are clinically, medically fit for discharge from our acute hospitals still in beds, because we don’t have beds in care homes, or we don’t have packages of care to send to them in their homes.

“We all agree on that, and we all agree that the fix could be five years or more.”

Mr McGrath said he was “almost speechless” to be told the issue would take more than five years to fix.

But Mr Nesbitt responded: “I didn’t say it would take five years to fix the ambulance service, I said it could take five years to build up the community capacity to ensure that we don’t have so many people who are medically fit for discharge still in acute beds.

“When I was at the Ulster hospital, that was 104 people who were medically fit for discharge, who were not being discharged.

“They told me it was 35 in Lagan Valley, a smaller number, but it’s 40% of the beds in Lagan Valley.”

The minister said he had visited the emergency department at Antrim Area Hospital on Christmas Day.

He said: “At 10.30am on Christmas morning, two people were in the reception, and on the far side most of the cubicles were empty.

“My question is, if that can be done on the 25th of December, why can it not be done on the 25th of January?”