Plus there are a further 4,000 around the rest of the UK - which means around one in eight beds are occupied by people who don’t necessarily need to be there.
Many of these “delayed discharge” patients are older and may be frail and living with multiple health conditions who need support in the community.
This was the case for my Dad. He’d recovered but was awaiting a place at rehabilitiation, but there weren’t any spaces (the rehab places are at care homes). The physio’s wouldn’t let him be discharged home so he was in hospital for over a week longer than he needed to be until a space opened up.
The 2010s gutting of social services also contributed to this.
Services that might have helped the elderly continue to live in their own homes, or supported in their community, got ripped up.
So everything slides until they hit the one thing that can’t be cut, a hospital bed.Add to that, the huge centralisation of hospital services since the 80s. Such that small town local hospitals no longer have any specialist support.
More and more services have been moved to big city hospitals where paitents from multiple towns are expected to travel.
And again elderly etc are less able to be at home ue to transportation difficulties. And complexity getting services fast.
