What’s the answer to ‘bed blocking’?

[Cuppasoupmonster]

Another day, another article about ‘bed blockers’ (put in speech marks because I know it’s a bit of a goady term).

I was shocked to find out a third of beds are taken up by ‘social patients’ in some trusts, who are medically fine to be discharged but can’t be because the care they need afterwards isn’t in place. I feel irate that the whole point of lockdowns to ‘stop the NHS from being overwhelmed’ needn’t have happened if it wasn’t overwhelmed in this way to start with.

Whats the answer? Early intervention so they don’t end up in hospital in the first place? A rise in taxes to pay for more services? I’m not sure the working population can afford to pay more tax.

The ‘ageing population’ issue means this can surely only get worse?

Iwasabedblocker · Today 20:30
I've been really upset by the response I've had from some. I'm in tears. I've asked mumsnet to delete my posts on this thread. And they've refused even though I'm in floods. So that's just great. I'm literally begging them to delete my posts

Please do not get upset by some of the crass, insensitive, ill-informed and inane comments directed at you and others in need. Get angry, but not upset.
If anything your posts are holding an important issue up to the light. Anybody can get ill or incapacitated at any age and in any circumstance. The very idea that everybody can predict or magic up a solution to every problem is ridiculous.

We have a 'free' education system. We need a 'free' care system. We just need the will of our society to put our fund these things - not into HS2 or other extravagant projects that do not benefit the majority or target identified needs.

We need to recognise we need to value, train and pay our health care teams more to attract the best and keep them. Truss was throwing tax benefits at bankers, where there is no shortage! Let's target our public service staff where there is a chronic.shortage.

Please Iwasabedblocker, ignore the baying ignorant mob who have lost all sense of the value of human life. Thankfully, they are in a minority.

I always find it really interesting on these sorts of threads that nearly everyone who has worked in elderly care in some shape or form almost unilaterally says in some form that we culturally we need to have a big conversation about what dying of old age actually looks like.

it's nearly always people who haven't worked in elderly care that are horrified by the idea that we want to 'euthanise' people.

I find it immoral the way we prioritise life at all costs over dignity and wellbeing in old age.

People deserve good and dignified deaths. Not being left at the mercy of an NHS which is being disembowelled and a social care system that is paralysed.

I used to work in one in the holidays when I was a student. It was great for patients. Single storey buildings with French doors opening out to lawns and flower beds. Patients came to us from the big general hospital when they were post operative or convalescing after an illness.
They loved the move to us because they knew they were getting better.We used to wheel their beds outside when it was sunny.
They would chatter like budgies! It was so much better for them than mouldering away
in an an overheated hospital ward.
That hospital is now gone and a housing estate built on its site.

Exactly @hatgirl

My grandma has just had a bad fall and ended up in hospital. She lives in France where the system is better funded, although it’s still under strain. She got a permanent place in a lovely state-run care home she can afford as soon as she left hospital. If a place hadn’t been available, she had a place booked in a temporary home.

Everybody pays a lot more tax in France. You get what you pay for. And it might not last for much longer.

I disagree
You have an area that is not performing if you have people sat in hospitals for 3 months awaiting care packages regularly. National stats in delayed discharges would show that - they collect them, it's reportable. And we do talk- us SWs in different LAs,
whilst there might be some variation, and better systems in some areas than others, there are also sometimes specific reasons why there is a delayed discharges of some length (as I said anecdotal stuff on AIBU isn't always best overall evidence gathering)

@Tiani4

Yeah

The social care crisis is definitely unique to my area. Or even just something I've just made up.

I cannot work out why your LA is not flagged as underperforming if in Eng or Wales - can't comment on other countries- and if they are not in regulatory measures - if you have average persons waiting regularly for 3 months in hospital for a POC to be set up . That's a huge performance indicator .

www.carehomeprofessional.com/uk-social-care-deteriorating-rapidly-with-waiting-lists-to-double-by-november/

www.communitycare.co.uk/2022/08/04/social-care-waiting-lists-up-37-in-6-months-finds-adass/

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/21/adult-social-care-in-england-is-in-crisis-say-tory-council-leaders

www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/workforce-crisis-responsible-for-gridlocked-health-and-social-care-system-21-10-2022/

I could go on?

My nan was a ‘bed blocker’ for 6 months after she was dropped in hospital causing major damage to her hips. The staff on the ward put immense pressure on my 78 year old mum to care for her at home despite the fact she was already a carer for my dad.

In the end nan was sent to a smaller hospital about 30 miles from family for rehabilitation which consisted of 15 minutes of physiotherapy twice a week. She will never be independently mobile again.

We eventually managed to get home carers arranged but it took many weeks to get sufficient people.

I'm not in England or Wales

I'm sure it is flagged as underperforming

That won't get carers in posts

I agree about convalescent homes - not everything can and should be fixed in the community or at home. As archaic as some institutions / hospitals / homes were they served a purpose

It sounds like she needed to be in a proper care home?

@Cuppasoupmonster She refuses to go into a care home and because she is of sound mind she can’t be forced to. She gets around her flat with the aid of a walking frame but needs help with her personal care. We have carers 4 times a day and a family rota for things like shopping and cleaning.

I think lot of the problem is that we don’t have cottage hospitals any more lots of older people went to the local cottage hospital to recover, also there use to be a thing called a con convalescent homes

I think that’s quite selfish if I’m honest.

@Tiani4 My hospital has fit for discharge patients who have been waiting for months for full POC to be put in place. It's absolutely dire.

Why? She self funds her care and the family pick up the slack. What’s selfish about that. If the NHS hadn’t caused her to lose mobility by dropping her she wouldn’t be in this state now.

Stop calling caring vocational and pay carers a decent wage so they don’t all leave to work in Aldi or Tesco who pays £10.10 and hour minimum plus free lunch while on shift.

This

"Maybe tax breaks for children who taken in their parents.
Acceptance of lower standards of care.
Group homes instead of in house care to free up staff.
Differentiation between social vs medical care and what is required."

Yes help people that help support their own relatives. Move the other bed blockers into any care home and then sell home to pay for it rather than allow the elderly person to dictate that they stay in hospital because x y or z - or charge them to stay in hospital as if an expensive care home and some would soon move out.... that would sort some of them out.

100% agree.

This, the NHS are literally wasting millions on projects that are not planned properly by the people at the top.
People being paid dam good salaries that are not in touch with what's going on on the shop floor.
Projects that get shut down after 5 years, (after they've spent millions)that could of been beneficial in preventing hospital admissions but failed due to lack of planning and poor use of resources.

Is this voluntary or involuntary euthanasia you are advocating? And just for the elderly or for other groups too?

Honestly, I think that the voters are at fault. Theresa May ran her election campaign with a proposal that social care should be fixed using a portion of the assets of older people, whether or not you are in a home. They had a costed plan. And Labour and the Lib Dems labelled it a death/dementia tax and opposed it, even when she put a cap on it (which should have been in the initial proposal, save that I think it should be a percentage of your assets so you are not just protecting the wealthy). TM lost the election and a generation of politicians have concluded that it is too toxic to touch and they will just pretend that tinkering around the edges is the way to go.

People fell for it, because they love the idea that we can have all this stuff for free that we don't have to pay for.

Putting a couple of p on income tax is not going to fix things. Not even close. Socialised care of the elderly using their assets is what is needed. Unless you want to pay masses more tax.

But voters won't vote for it. The elderly won't pay for their own care. And doctors will always see their duty as prolonging life rather than managing death until things are really palliative (which I totally understand).

People do not want to face up to basic truths about death and taxes.

(My grandmother had a heart bypass in her late 70s that gave her 15 more years, but was already in cognitive decline and she spent 10 of them demented. I'm not sure that is living, really. My other grandmother had a heart bypass at nearly 90 and then died within 2 years of a stroke - I will treasure those years with her, but honestly she and her family understood that there wasn't long left and when she died she was ready to go - every time I saw her, she tried to say goodbye, because she felt that she was just being patched up again and again and episodes were going to get more and more frequent, which was very depressing for a lady who was sharp and positive otherwise.).