£4m to ease hospital bed-blocking

BRISTOL City Council plans to spend almost £4 million on freeing up blocked beds in hospitals.

Many elderly patients in hospitals are not sick enough to need to be there, but there is often a struggle to find somewhere safe to discharge them to. So-called ‘bed blockers’ endure unnecessarily lengthy stays in hospitals.

This also means there are fewer available hospital beds.

The Government is paying councils millions through its discharge fund grant, aiming to move on patients from hospital more quickly and prevent unnecessary admissions. A report to the adult social care committee, which will meet on Monday, July 1, detailed how the cash will be spent.

According to the report, the programme is “supporting people to leave hospital, when appropriate to do so, and continuing their recovery, support and assessment out of hospital, returning to their own homes and communities whenever possible”.

Bristol has now established Transfer of Care Hubs within hospitals and made improvements in discharging people more promptly. Government grants will be used to build additional capacity in social care and community-based re-ablement facilities, as well as maximise the number of hospital beds freed up. This year the council aims to spend £3,975,961 on the programme.

Adult social care services take up just under half of the council’s day-to-day spending, costing taxpayers £198m in the last financial year. In 2022, the council closed the South Bristol Rehab Centre, in a bid to save £500,000 a year.