NHS providers calls for end to temporary fixes to hospital bed blocking crisis

A health chief has called for an end to “temporary fixes” to theNHS crisis after i revealed at least three hospital groups were opening “care hotels” to help ease the pressure on beds.

Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said longer-term solutions were required to solve the delays in discharging thousands of patients from hospital beds.

“It’s a massive challenge when thousands of beds are occupied by people for whom there just isn’t social care or sufficient support in a community setting to allow them to be discharged,” Ms Deakin told i.

“This in turn is putting the whole urgent and emergency care system under huge strain, a key contributor to long waits in busy A&E departments and ambulances queuing outside with more patients.

“Instead of the NHS having to find temporary fixes, what we need to ease the discharge logjams is for the Government to fix longstanding shortages of capacity, workforce and funding to put social care on a sustainable footing.”

Ms Deakin’s comments follow confirmation that Cornwall health chiefs are seeking to open a care hotel to ease pressure on the county’s only major hospital.

On Wednesday, i revealed that three NHS regions in south-west England were block-booking hotel space to free up beds in hospitals for those in need of more urgent care.

Asked about the use of care hotels at a board meeting of Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust (RCHT) on Thursday, the trust’s chief operating officer Robin Jones said: “There are discussions across Cornwall to set up a similar facility to that that we used in previous years.

“Those conversations are underway at the moment, but all of the details are not yet confirmed. But they will include making sure there’s appropriate staffing for the area should we use it, and that will be for all of Cornwall to use.”

Patients at the Royal Cornwall in Truro – Cornwall’s only major acute hospital – face wait times of up to 12 hours, and the trust has only recently been stood down from its latest critical incident.

Dr Mairi McLean, chairwoman of the RCHT, added: “Our hospital, like so many other hospitals in the country, is bursting at the seams. We all know that, and it has been for some time.”

It is believed hospitals across England each have, on average, between 100 and 200 patients taking up bed space, despite being ready for discharge due to a social care package not being available.

The latest available figures show that the average number of hospital beds occupied by people who could be discharged if a care package was available has risen consistently since last summer.

There are around 13,600 beds occupied by people ready to be discharged but awaiting a social care package, up from 11,590 in June.

Cornwall has agreed to share a hotel in Plymouth with NHS Devon but is also seeking its own facility.

Care hotels, which are managed by private healthcare operators that are registered with the Care Quality Commission, are used as a temporary solution for the vulnerable and elderly who require specialist care for a range of conditions, including mobility issues and dementia.

On average, patients spend around a month in a care hotel before a social care package can be sourced or a place in a care home becomes available.

In Devon, the NHS has booked rooms to accommodate up to 40 patients at the Leonardo hotel in Plymouth.

NHS Devon had originally booked 30 beds in the hotel, but following a deal with Cornish health chiefs, it extended the booking by 10 to take patients from across the county border.

NHS hospitals in Bristol and surrounding areas have also booked hotel accommodation for up to 30 patients until the end of March.

However, criticism of the use of care hotels has continued after Age UK told i that the strategy “underlines just how severe the crisis in social care has become”.

A health sector leader has claimed there are beds available in care homes that are being offered to the NHS but not being used, despite being less expensive than a care hotel.

The average weekly cost of keeping a patient in a care hotel starts from about £1,000, compared to around £520 in a care home.

Nadra Ahmed, chairwoman of the Care Homes Association, told the BBC: “Quite a time before Christmas, I was being contacted by providers saying, ‘I’ve got beds, but I haven’t been contacted by the local hospital.’

“I’ve also heard from corporate providers who have said to me that ‘we have got beds available, but we’re not being asked to fill them by the hospitals’, and I think there is some miscommunication. I think this is where it’s quite worrying for us. I can understand if there were no beds in an area that this [care hotel] would be a pathway to go to.”

A spokeswoman for NHS England said: “Care hotels have been used locally in the NHS before as a short-term measure to support with discharging clinically appropriate patients who are medically fit to leave hospital.

“They are not a replacement for care homes, but are amongst alternative local measures to support with discharging patients safely from hospital into environments that meet their individual needs.” inews.co.uk