bed blockers adding to the lack of hospital beds

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My mum was medically discharged to leave hospital into rehab (following a stroke) well over a month ago but due to no rehab beds being available she is still taking a hospital bed from someone who needs to be admitted from a&e. She has now tested positive for covid and despite no symptoms at all is now taking a private room on the ward for 7 days as they insist she isolates.

Over 3 weeks ago I rang every private rehab within 50 miles and none could assess her to see if she could transfer until 5th Jan. Despite fees of over £2k per week with extra charges for all physio.

She could possibly have regained mobility with daily physio in rehab had she been discharged weeks ago whereas now she could have far more care needs for the rest of her life.

The system appears broken to me and could affect any one of us and I cant understand the lack of protests. Any of us could need the hospital bed not just the elderly. Her ward is not just used for strokes.

I 100 percent agree with you.

We to improve our social care system in order to help our health care system.

*need

Should be one integrated system imo.

Back in the day, the NHS had elderly long stay wards for people who were well enough to leave hospital, but who needed ongoing social care or rehabilitation.

But they got rid of them.

Your Mum is not a bed blocker. Your Mum is being failed by yhe government

A few years ago my Mil was admitted to hospital after a fall (Parkinson's related) and a bad uti. After she no longer needing complex medical care she was transferred to a local "cottage hospital " where she had physio and occupational therapy and general care until she was ready to go home. 3 wards full of the elderly in similar situations. Lovely caring place that undoubtedly helped her to continue to live at home afterwards.

It's now been closed- and the local general hospital is full of "bed blockers ". Thankyou Tory voters.😡

Yes, this is exactly what is meant when they talk about the crisis in care being a major factor in performance of NHS.

If you cannot discharge patients safely, with appropriate care in place (rehab, period of convalescence or wider social care) then acute beds become blocked.

It doesn't matter how big or shiny your sink is, if the plughole isn't draining properly, the sink will fill and over flow.

And then there's the double whammy of lack of rehab leading to worse outcomes - both shit for the individual concerned and for wider provision as they will in al probability have greater needs in future

The 4 people in my mums bay were all injured within a 2 day period, falling our of chair or bed or the tv being positioned above their head so every time they sat up they hit it and i couldnt move it as the canula machine they were connected to was in the way. All likely adding to length of rehab required especially the one resulting in a broken bone. All the chairs were really slippery so they could be disinfected but there were no straps/seat belt to hold them in place. TVs were in totally the wrong place.

Patients who had use of one arm couldnt reach a button to raise their bed so would eat laying down and choke as staff leaving meals were not allowed to press button to raise bed for them. Staff delivering meals were not allowed/trained to check it met the allergy requirements stated on the headboard. Staff bringing tea didnt know about thickening drinks for some stroke patients as they covered all wards and had no training on this.

I cant understand the lack of outcry. It could be any of us, including one of our 18 year olds injured on their bike for example exposed to all this.

I hate the term bed blocker, it implies a choice or fault by people who actually want only to get as fit and well as possible and go home. The shortages and underfunding of social work teams and in domiciliary care, the lack of rehab places, the fact that most community hospitals were shut down, so many factors.

I worked in adult social care for decades. We all knew how bad it was and getting worse, as did our health colleagues. Until Government actually listens to people in the frontline and is prepared to spend the money needed to restructure and fund adequately, it will continue to deteriorate.

I'm in the middle of all this at the moment due to my DHs health and struggling to get through it. How a frail 90 year old spouse with no experience of the system navigates and advocates I don't know.

Yes I am well aware my mum is not to blame as a bed blocker other than being a life long Tory of course. I was out on protest marches long before she had her stroke and certainly did not vote for Johnson!! However the lack of interest in our area was unbelievable. Not just attendance at protests but not even looking at placards or information. Why as it could happen to anyone. We had no ambulance 6 weeks ago despite total paralysis at the time. Still think they would all vote Tory even now.

I'm in the middle of this with my mum at the moment. She ended up in hospital after a fall with 3 broken ribs. Due to her dementia her recovery is less straight forward so they admitted her whereas most people would have been sent home with pain relief.
She has been left in an overstretched, understaffed ward for 2weeks. As they say she can't be discharged back to her care home until she's mobile again. There is no medical reason she isn't mobile just that she has been left with no attention in a bay on her own. She gets 2mins of the physios coming round each day - they ask her if she wants to get up, she's non verbal so doesn't answer and they move on. It's frustrating because she needs attention and care as she's frightened and doesn't understand where she is or why. It's better when family are able to go in and be with her but none of us live close so it's been a struggle (I live at the other end of the country and did a few days stint but had to come home to look after my kids. I'll go back this week for a bit.)
Mum has a care package in place but due to the lack of staffing she's not been able to be well enough for discharge.
I've been seriously worried about her when we've not been able to have family with her as we have been relied on to feed her and assist her when we are there because they simply don't have the staffing levels to look after someone with dementia (she's on a general ward)

The fact care homes are charging over £2k a week, is irrelevant if they can’t get the staff to look after new residents.

Until the government funds social care better, care workers will go and work in supermarkets for more money and less responsibility!

Theres so many issues within the health and social care system. Underfunding, understaffed, lack of beds. However, the crux of it is, we can't handle the ever growing aging population. We are keeping people alive far longer then we should.

The problem is the risk of legal action. Surely you could have helped her up, got her walking , moving about - if a staff member in a hospital or care home allowed a patient to be injured (eg because only one was available to help when it should be two or they misused the lifting gear etc etc etc) then they’d be fired and hosp sued.
So no one can do anything that doesn’t 100% follow guidelines.
The patients you mentioned not reaching their buzzers, needing help to eat - really family should help with that.
But family are busy/ working/ not fit enough themselves so we wait for a non existent qualified person.
And so it goes on.

Your mother is not a bed blocker. She needs a rehabilitation unit or rehab at home. I used to work in rehab and it seems all the great lessons we learnt about Stroke rehab have gone out of the window and now people are not getting good outcomes because of this.

About 40 years ago, our cottage hospital effectively became a retirement home. Bed blocking isn't a new problem, it's been going on for decades.
A shame, as at school anyone needing the removal of their appendix, tonsils adenoids etc, it was done in their operating theatre, often by a GP. My mother had a plastic joint replacement there, too.

There used to be convalescent homes for such eventualities, they were all closed.

Those saying family should be helping - visiting time is extremely limited and not at meal times!!! Absolute maximum 4 hours out of every 24. I have been there every minute I am allowed every day for nearly 2 months. That is not the issue.

I made the point about private care as I wanted to make it clear this issue affects almost everyone other than the extremely wealthy perhaps who can get live in care at much higher wages. To emphasize that those who might typically pay for residential care and hence be less worried about the NHS can still be affected here if there are no spaces.

In our town we used to have a lovely elderly care /rehab hospital. It had 3 wards, an occupational therapy unit and a physio unit. It was perfect for getting patients ready to go home.
Yeah it got sold off, it’s a housing estate now 😡

Nearly all the local / cottage hospitals have been closed.

My stepson in law who is a hospital consultant said that the main reason for lack of beds is people who are unable to be discharged, not fit enough to go home, but in need of intermediate care. This problem won't be solved until this is recognised and care workers are paid properly.

We don't hear enough in the media about the lack of rehab provision, which needs serious overhauling (e.g. redirection of finances) as well as higher funding from the govt towards elderly social care (own home and carehome) and GP surgeries. In terms of bed blocking they also really need to address pharmacy issues in hospitals and employ more pharmacists/have greater pharmacy capacity. This is causing a huge amount of discharge delays and 'bed blocking', which is in turn holding up admissions from A and E, with the knock-on effects on the ambulance service, which is now beyond dangerous.

PP mentioned bed blocking has always been a thing, well it has, but nowhere near the extent it is now. It's absolutely heartbreaking what's happening with the NHS and the media are not digging into this as much as they could/should be.

Exactly the same in our town. Huge site with plenty of space for all elderly people to recover, lovely grounds and facilities. Now yet another housing estate! Fed up with the implication that the elderly are causing this for having the audacity to live too long!

People are living too long now resulting in an avalanche of sick elderly on top of 10 years of austerity. I think we over-treat a lot of people and drag them out another couple of years when it would be more dignified to focus on pain management.

I think we over-treat a lot of people and drag them out another couple of years

Jesus Christ.