Kirkcaldy constituency MSP Marilyn Livingstone has expressed concern at a report to a recent NHS Fife Board meeting on winter planning which stated that Fife has ‘the highest number of delayed discharges in Scotland’ and outlined the risks associated with this in the run up to winter.
Delayed discharges are a problem that predominantly affects elderly patients who do not require any further treatment in hospital but cannot return home due to a lack of funding for support and resources in the community. In this situation the hospital cannot discharge them until appropriate care is put in place. The latest figures show that 100 patients were waiting to be discharged from Fife hospitals in July 2010, taking up 8.7% of occupied beds. There are now fears that this problem will be exacerbated by the problems associated with winter, such as high instances of H1N1 pandemic flu and norovirus which badly affected Fife last year.
NHS Fife Board are required to ensure that they are fully prepared, along with their partners, for winter in order to minimise any potential disruption to services, patients and carers. However the report admits that winter brings a number of challenges that may affect service delivery and that the financial position faced by Fife Council and NHS Fife Board will place significant challenges on parts of the organisations in coping with the additional pressures associated with winter.
Should the problem of delayed discharges continue into the winter months, these seasonal pressures may result in insufficient beds to maintain the flow of incoming patients which in turn would lead to an inability to manage emergency admissions. In this case the four hour standard at accident and emergency could not be maintained and inpatient and day-case waiting times would increase.
Marilyn has now asked for the issue to be put on the agenda of the next NHS Fife Joint Informal Meeting, attended by MSPs and MPs, on Friday 10 December so that this can be discussed with Fife’s health chiefs and hopes to arrange a personal meeting with them before this date.
The local MSP added:
“I am very concerned about the details of this report and the fact that Fife has highest number of delayed discharges in the country.
“If the pressures of winter are similar to those we faced last year there is a very real chance that our accident and emergency services will again be affected at the time of the year when we need them the most.
“I will be raising this with the Chairman of NHS Fife, Professor Jim McGoldrick, at the upcoming meeting and will be seeking assurances that NHS Fife have a plan both to improve delayed discharge figures and to accommodate the higher demand for NHS services over the winter period”.
