South Scotland MSP claims delayed discharge has cost more than £42 million in Dumfries and Galloway

South Scotland MSP claims delayed discharge has cost more than £42 million in Dumfries and Galloway

Dumfries and Galloway’s problem with delayed discharge in hospitals may have cost more than £42 million since 2015.

And South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth also claims that more than 150,000 bed days have been lost to the problem over that time.

The figures were compiled by My Smyth’s Scottish Labour party, which claims the cost of delayed discharge – when a patient is medically cleared to leave hospital but can’t, often because there is no care package in place – in Scotland has topped £1.2 billion since 2015.

Mr Smyth said: “It’s been almost a decade since the SNP promised to end delayed discharge – but our region is still paying the price for their failure.

“Make no mistake – this is a disaster over a decade in the making, with successive health secretaries – including Humza Yousaf – completely unable to tackle delayed discharge.

“I have repeatedly raised this issue since I was elected but the situation is getting worse and worse. Medical professionals are clear that the failure to tackle delayed discharge is crippling our NHS and putting lives at risk.

“We cannot have patients left in hospital unnecessarily and the public purse drained due to poor provision of care for those leaving hospital.

“We need long term investment, including tackling low level of sheltered housing and loss of care homes locally, but the Government could start by backing Labour’s plans to pay care workers a fair wage moving towards £15 per hour as quickly as possible, which would help with the recruitment crisis.”

The figures were compiled using data from Public Health Scotland.

Between March 2015 and October 2023, Scottish Labour claims 155,156 bed days have been lost due to delayed discharge. A Public Health Scotland report in 2021 claimed the estimated average daily cost of delayed discharge was £262 per bed.

Taking inflation into account, Mr Smyth says that means the cost of delayed discharge in the region since 2015 is £42,303,640.50.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “There are various, and often complex, reasons why individuals are delayed in hospital and it is critical that people are cared for in the right setting and that hospital beds are there for those who need them.

“In addition to the £3.6 million provided this year to support growth of hospital at home services for older people, we have also invested additional funds of £12 million as part of our winter plan to increase capacity and provide services in peoples’ own homes where appropriate.

“Significant additional funding has also been allocated to support social care. From April 2024 adult social care workers delivering direct care in commissioned services will see their pay increase to a minimum of £12 per hour.

“We continue to work closely with health and social care partnerships to address delays and support people out of acute settings and back into the community or home as quickly as possible. We have also been supporting partnerships to create the necessary capacity to deal with emerging pressures over winter, and to ensure people are assessed and discharged with the appropriate care package as quickly as possible.”