New statistics from Public Health Scotland show that the average number of hospital beds occupied each day across Scotland in July due to delayed discharge was 1,806.
That was the highest figure since the SNP’s current guidance on delayed discharge came into place in July 2016. Then SNP Health Secretary Shona Robison promised to eradicate delayed discharge in February 2015.
However, in NHS Lothian, the number of delayed discharge beds occupied in July 2022 was 9,166, which was a 6% rise on the figure in June.
The average number of daily delayed-discharge beds occupied in NHS Lothian was 296, which was a 3% INCREASE on the figure in June.
Jeremy Balfour says the knock-on effect of patients being delayed in hospitals NHS Lothian is longer A&E waits, cancelled operations and increased costs for the NHS.
Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP Jeremy Balfour said: “The sheer scale of the delayed discharge problem in NHS Lothian is enormous and is continuing to have a crippling impact throughout our local health and social care system.
“It is soul-destroying for those patients in NHS Lothian who are stuck in hospital with no care-home places or packages available to them.
“The impact of an increasing rate of delayed discharge in NHS Lothian reverberates through our whole health service. A lack of beds in NHS Lothian due to delayed discharge leads to increasing waits at A&E, more operations being cancelled and increased costs for our NHS.
“The SNP promised to eradicate delayed discharge in 2015, but that appears to be further away than ever in NHS Lothian and I cannot see their plans for a centralised national care service doing anything to help the issues facing patients.”
