Delayed discharge figures prompt calls for ministers to scrap care service plans

Scottish ministers are being urged to invest cash earmarked for the planned National Care Service into frontline services – with opposition parties insisting such action is necessary to tackle delayed discharges.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats made the plea as figures for September showed patients who were medically well enough to leave spent 59,033 additional days in hospital.

With this total 9% higher than in September 2023, ministers were urged to use funding for the National Care Service to improve the situation.

Delayed discharge occurs when patients are medically fit to leave hospital but cannot do so as they are waiting for care arrangements to be put in place.

During September, an average of 1,968 beds were occupied each day by people whose discharge was delayed, figures from Public Health Scotland show.

While that is down from the high of 2,000 in August, Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said the Government was still “miles away” from meeting its commitment to eradicate the problem.

He said: “SNP ministers promised to eradicate delayed discharge almost a decade ago, but continue to be miles away from doing so.

“Almost 2,000 patients who have been deemed fit and healthy enough to return home are still taking up space in hospital each month on their watch.”

Adding that delays in discharging patients could have a “devastating knock-on effect across our NHS”, Dr Gulhane called on ministers to ditch plans for a National Care Service.

Establishing a National Care Service was a flagship commitment from the Government in the wake of the Covid pandemic, but trade unions and the local government body Cosla have withdrawn their support for it, with ministers now facing a struggle to get legislation to set up the service through Holyrood.

Dr Gulhane said: “The SNP’s only answer to the crisis across health and social care is to plough ahead with a National Care Service that nobody wants.

“Instead of continuing to squander millions of taxpayers’ money on it, they should show some common sense and ditch it, and ensure that every penny is diverted towards local care services, to
help ease the scale of delayed discharge across our NHS.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “Far too many people are stuck in hospital unnecessarily because there are no care packages available at home or in the community.

“In turn this is contributing to record-breaking waits in A&E and leading to dangerous ambulance delays.

“The SNP’s planned ministerial takeover will do nothing to fix the crisis in social care.

“Unions, council leaders and every opposition party in the Scottish Parliament are all against the Bill – it should be scrapped immediately.

“My party have opposed this billion-pound bureaucracy from day one because we know it will do nothing to ease pressures. We want to see that money spent on frontline services and staff struggling right now.”

Health Secretary Neil Gray said: “The health and social care system continues to face pressures due to a number of factors, including the availability of workforce and suitable care placements.

“Behind every delay is a person who will not sleep in their own bed tonight despite being clinically fit to leave hospital.”

He added that while there have been “reductions in the number of delays within a number of local authority areas, these have not been replicated” in other areas, with Mr Gray complaining of an “unacceptable level of variation”.

However he added the Scottish Government had agreed a “collaborative approach with Cosla to reducing delayed discharges as a top priority”.