£1bn bedblocking fund not being spent properly, say 40% of hospitals

Hospital bosses say local councils are failing to properly boost social care provision so that more patients can be discharged | The Guardian

More than 40% of British hospitals say they cannot guarantee patients will receive safe care next winter because a sum of £1bn earmarked to reduce “bedblocking” is not being spent properly. Hospital bosses claim that many local councils are failing to put the emergency funding into schemes to help patients get home quicker by improving social care support for them. As a result, the NHS is likely to come even closer to falling over than it did in 2016-17, according to a new report from NHS Providers, the trade association that represents most NHS trusts in England.

Government plans that the £1bn will free up 2,000-3,000 hospital beds are not being realised, it claims. Serious problems last winter saw record numbers of hospitals temporarily unable to cope with the sheer number of patients needing treatment and unprecedented numbers of patients forced to wait – in ambulances outside A&E units and on trolleys in corridors – for a bed before they could be admitted.

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