Bed blocking across Lothian hospitals decreases again

BED blocking in Lothians hospitals is continuing to ease, latest figures have shown.

In April, there were only 64 people occupying beds who were well enough to leave but had nowhere to go.

It is an improvement on previous months and a vast change from the past when there were several hundred delayed discharge patients.

East Lothian continues to have proportionally more cases than anywhere else, largely due to a shortage of nursing homes and a population whose average age is higher than most of the country. In contrast, not a single case came from West Lothian.

NHS Lothian's director of strategic planning and modernisation Jackie Sansbury said: "We have managed to better our target again.

"We now need to work hard to maintain this low level of patients moving on to the correct place for them."