Hospitals told to review discharge plans as NHS comes under ‘severe’ pressure

Health boards across Scotland have been ordered to review discharge plans to see if hospital patients can be sent home sooner as the NHS continues to come under “severe” pressure, Nicola Sturgeon said.

NHS boards have until the end of this month to review their discharge plans, the First Minister added.

Ms Sturgeon spoke of her concerns that accident and emergency waiting times remain “far higher than they should be”, saying these have been exacerbated by capacity issues at hospitals.

She also told journalists at a Scottish Government briefing in Edinburgh that the current pressures on the NHS “are having an adverse impact on too many” patients.

However, she said some of those pressures had eased slightly, saying the situation in A&E departments was “stabilising” while calls to NHS24 are down on the previous week.

Despite this, the health service is still under “intense” pressure, with Ms Sturgeon saying the Scottish Government “remains focused” on helping the health service navigate the crisis.

“Despite some very initial indications of a very slight easing of some winter pressure in the past week, hospital occupancy is still very high at this stage,” she said.

“In summary, therefore, pressure remains intense but we do hope to see a further easing of it in the weeks ahead.

“And of course we remain focused on supporting the service to address these pressures.”

Commenting on the decision to re-assess discharge plans, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said the initiative would “help to alleviate pressure on our NHS by freeing up beds and improving the flow of patients through hospitals”, as well as being “in the best interest of the people concerned”.

He added: “If we can reduce delayed discharge there is more chance that beds will be available for people who need them. We hope that these reviews will also contribute to reducing some of the pressures our hospitals are facing.”

To tackle the problems the Scottish Government last week announced an additional £8 million to buy care home beds, in a bid to free up spaces in hospitals.

This week she said health boards are now being “asked to review before the end of January all discharge plans in acute and community hospitals to identify patients who should be discharged more quickly”.

This action could “help resolve any issues that may be preventing their discharge from hospital”, the First Minister added.

With three health boards – including Scotland’s largest NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde – also having paused elective surgeries, Ms Sturgeon said work was being done with the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank and others to increase capacity for elective surgeries to minimise the knock-on pressure on waiting times.

Chief medical officer Sir Gregor Smith said the government continued to keep a close eye on infection numbers for flu and coronavirus in care homes.

Following last week’s announcement, the group Care Home Relatives Scotland had voiced concern there would be increased infections in care settings, leading to homes being closed to visitors.

Sir Gregor said: “We’re now seeing that picture beginning to stabilise as some of the pressures in terms of community infections are beginning to stabilise as well.”