Slight increase in number of days lost to bed blocking in Dumfries and Galloway's hospital

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The number of days lost in the region’s hospitals due to bed blocking has risen slightly.New figures show that 2,500 days were lost to delayed discharge in June.That’s an improvement on the April figure of 2,735, but slightly up on the May position of 2,443.The figures from Public Health Scotland also show that the number of beds occupied each day by people clinically well enough to leave in June was 83, compared to 79 in May and 91 in April.The Healthcare Improvement Scotland website shows DGRI – the region’s flagship hospital – operates 392 staffed beds.Delayed discharge is when a patient is medically cleared to go home but cannot leave hospital for various reasons, such as no social care package being in place.Across Scotland in June, 50,340 bed days were lost, down from 52,914 in May.A health board spokesman said: “Massive pressures are currently being experienced across the whole of health and social care within Dumfries and Galloway.“Key challenges impacting on the ability to discharge people in a timely manner from hospital include securing care packages to support people in their own homes as well as capacity within older adult care homes.“Ongoing recruitment activity in care at home services is supported by the national increase in pay for this sector.“The independent and third sectors are fully involved in partnership working and support and we have multi-disciplinary teams reviewing people’s needs and identifying new and alternative ways of meeting those.”He added: “Other factors which can contribute to delayed discharge include legal issues around capacity and guardianship.

This can result in protracted delays.“It is very important that everyone gives forethought to situations where they may no longer have