Humza Yousaf unable to ‘get a grip’ on delayed discharges, say Scottish Tories

The Health Secretary is “unable to get a grip” on delayed discharges from Scottish hospitals, the Scottish Conservatives have said.

The latest figures from Public Health Scotland highlighted a 57% year-on-year increase in delays to discharging patients from hospitals across the country in the month of February this year, with 47,713 days being spent in hospital as a result of hold-ups.

In comparison, under this metric, there were 30,450 days spent in hospitals in February 2021.

In February 2022, the average number of beds occupied per day due to delayed discharges was 1,704, which Public Health Scotland said is more consistent with pre-pandemic figures.

The daily average was 1,699 in the month of January this year.

At the census point for February 2022, there were 1,604 people delayed. This measure is a decrease of 2% when compared to figures for January, when 1,637 people were delayed.

Of those delayed at the February census point, 1,335 people were delayed more than three days.

Some 920 (69%) of patients were delayed for more than three days due to health and social care reasons, while complex needs accounted for 385 delays (29%).

A further 30 delays (2%) were due to patient and family-related reasons.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman, Dr Sandesh Gulhane, said the “deeply alarming” figures show that Humza Yousaf is “unable to get a grip on the worsening delayed discharge crisis”.

He added that the delays not only limit the number of available beds for incoming patients, but are “soul-destroying” for patients waiting to leave hospital.

Dr Gulhane said: “In February, the equivalent of 130 years’ worth of days were spent in hospital by patients who didn’t need to be there.

“That’s awful for two major reasons: firstly, it’s soul-destroying for patients desperate to get out of hospital but who can’t because resources are not in place in their community; and secondly, it limits the number of beds available to incoming patients.

“The knock-on effects of the latter reverberate through our NHS, impacting on A&E treatment times and planned operations having to be cancelled.

“The SNP vowed to eradicate delayed discharge more than seven years ago, but the problem is worse than ever and now they’ve watered down the commitment. Humza Yousaf simply has to act now.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, has called on the Scottish Government to take action “immediately” to prevent the “extremely worrying trend”.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said: “The number of people stuck in hospital unnecessarily has more than doubled in a year, showing the pressure and gaps in social care in the community. This is an extremely worrying trend – action must be taken immediately before this gets out of control.

“If the Health Secretary wanted to genuinely help patients and staff, he would focus his time and attention on fixing the problems that make securing care packages so difficult.

“Instead, the Scottish Government are consulting on centralising services, which is years away and already seeing kickback from practitioners across the country. The solution to social care isn’t a centralised ministerial takeover.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We remain in the midst of a global pandemic and Scotland’s NHS and social care services are under more pressure than at any previous stage.

“We have announced significant additional funding to address delayed discharge, including £62 million to enhance care at home, £48 million to increase the hourly rate of pay, £40 million to support interim care arrangements and £20 million to enhance multi-disciplinary teams.

“We have also recently launched our discharge without delay programme, backed by £5 million, to help local health and social care partnerships improve discharge planning arrangements.

“We are working with partners to safely discharge people to their own homes, or to an appropriate care home or community setting.”