DELAY DOOM
Patient ‘fit enough to be sent home’ stuck in hospital for 7 YEARS amid ‘discharge crisis’, shock new figures reveal
The particular patient required “highly complex care in a specialist facility”, NHS Fife says
A PATIENT has been stuck in a hospital bed for seven years despite being medically fit to go home, according to new figures.
NHS Fife admitted the unidentified person had been waiting for 2,576 days – the equivalent of seven years and 21 days in hospital.
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Several freedom of information requests by the Scottish Conservatives revealed many patients are waiting years to leave wards, even after being told it is safe to do so.
The shocking figure is well above the average delayed discharge time for the health board, which was around 20 days.
NHS Fife says this particular patient required “highly complex care in a specialist facility”.
A spokesperson told : “An interim placement would be inappropriate and unreasonable, and not in the individual’s best interests.”
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There were patients in NHS Highland and NHS Lothian waiting more than four years.
While NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde -Scotland’s biggest health board - has a patient waiting 1,334 days - three years.
It comes just days after the Scottish Government announced it had scrapped long-held plans for a National Care Service.
Official figures showed that in November alone, patients whose discharge had been delayed spent an additional 60,696 days in hospital.
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This is seven per cent higher than the same month in 2023.
Public Health Scotland data found that in November 2024 there were more than 2,000 people whose discharge was delayed, with many of them likely to have been waiting for care arrangements to be made.
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The Scottish Tories said the statistics “exposed the true scale of the delayed discharge crisis on the Scottish National Party's (SNP's) watch”.
Dr Sandesh Gulhane, the party’s health spokesperson, said extreme delays to discharge should be a "source of shame" to the SNP.
He said: "It is scarcely believable that any patient would be stuck in one of Scotland’s hospitals for over seven years.
"Patients up and down the country are suffering shocking waits of several years despite the then SNP health secretary Shona Robison promising to eradicate delayed discharge almost a decade ago.
"These disgraceful figures should be a source of shame for the successive SNP health secretaries who have followed her.
"They have allowed a permanent crisis to exist in Scotland’s hospitals and frontline social care services."
What is the NHS discharge crisis?
A "discharge crisis
The problem is there’s not enough support for them in the community, like social care, so they end up stuck in hospital beds.
This causes a backlog, puts extra pressure on hospitals, and is one of the big factors behind the wider NHS crisis.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “While we cannot comment on individual patients, there are some highly complex cases – including mental health patients or hospital-based complex clinical care patients – where unfortunately it is extremely difficult to find an appropriate care package.
“Long-term hospital inpatient cases of this nature remain rare, and the latest published official statistics shows the median length of delay for NHS Fife was 20 days.
“We have seen a reduction in delayed discharge in many councils in recent months and are working closely with all councils to review performance and escalate where we are not seeing necessary improvements in delayed discharge.”
Jim Crombie, deputy chief executive of NHS Lothian, said: “Very often when a patient is delayed in hospital for a long time, it is because they require a significant and complex, bespoke package of care that is difficult for health and social care partnerships to provide in the community.
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“The issue of delayed discharge is a complicated challenge for the NHS, Health and Social Care Partnerships and council colleagues.
“We know that home is the best place for a patient to recover as soon as they are well enough and as a result, we continue to work closely with our four health and social care partners in Lothian to tackle delayed discharges, including increasing community health care capacity, home care and care home availability.”
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