SNP's £100m attempt to tackle hospital bed blocking really does need to work

Delayed discharge of patients means others end up waiting for a bed in a ward (Picture: Christopher Furlong) | Getty Images

The ‘Hospital at Home’ scheme provides “urgent, short-term, hospital-level care” for patients so that they don’t need to stay in a hospital bed. Now the Scottish Government is hoping that a £100 million boost for the service will turn it into the "biggest hospital in Scotland" and help to finally tackle the long-standing problem of ‘delayed discharge’, aka bed blocking.

It’s worth noting that this fund could have been 30 per cent higher, if ministers had not essentially wasted £30 million on preparations for a proposed National Care Service that now looks highly unlikely to proceed.

Social care minister Maree Todd’s trumpeting of the government’s plans also came just days after it emerged NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had stopped its Hospital at Home services ahead of this winter, despite a replacement service not being ready until sometime next year.

Dr Iain Kennedy, chair of the British Medical Association Scotland, said there was “no doubt” that delayed discharge was a “huge issue”, describing it as “prevalent and enduring in our hospitals”.

He stressed that the extra money from government “must be accompanied by a long-term vision for the whole of the NHS that, as Audit Scotland has pointed out, is completely lacking”. “It’s only with this kind of comprehensive vision that we’ll really get to the root of tackling delayed discharge and the myriad other problems the health service faces,” he added.

Despite much rhetoric from SNP ministers, delayed discharge has been a persistent blight on the NHS that has only ever seemed to get worse. Recent figures showed that a record 2,030 people who were well enough to leave hospital were stuck there because of a lack of a suitable social care package.

Clearly, this is a long-term issue that will not be solved overnight. However, it is welcome that ministers are at least trying to tackle it. We – along with thousands of patients stuck in beds or waiting in one of the many long NHS queues for one – will watch with interest to see how this latest effort fares.

All Scotland will hope to see signs of significant progress soon.