OAPs face 30-day wait for transfer to care home

Age UK said that patients wait an average of 30 days before finding a place in a residential care home – a rise of three days per patient since the coalition took office three years ago.

The charity said that “needless” waiting in hospitals costs the NHS around £250 per patient each day – compared with the £524 average weekly cost of residential care.

Health officials are currently grappling with increasing delays in A&E units which have been partly blamed on delays in discharging patients from hospitals.

A charity spokeswoman said a third of the “days lost” due to delayed discharge are linked to patients waiting for social care.

Ministers say plans to link health and social care will cut the delays – although changes will not be in place until 2018.

They blame poor co-ordination between hospital and social care staff leading to long waits before patients are discharged.

Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb said some elderly people were discharged from hospital to homes which were not adapted to their needs, leading to them deteriorating or falling and ending up back in A&E.

“People don’t want health care or social care, they just want the best care,” he said.

“Unless we change the way we work, the NHS and care system is heading for a crisis. This national commitment to working together is an important moment in ensuring we have a system which is fit for the future.”

Age UK said many local authorities, which provide social care, were “struggling” to balance their books because of funding cuts and had raised eligibility criteria for help so that older people were more frail and disabled to qualify for help.

Its director general Michelle Mitchell said: “Waiting in hospital needlessly not only wastes NHS resources but it can also undermine an older person’s recovery and be profoundly upsetting for them and their families as a result.

“We are very worried that the growing crisis in social care is having a significant impact on the length of time that older people are having to stay in hospital waiting for social care support to be put in place.

“The steep rise in the length of time people are waiting for a care home place, home care or adaptations – significantly above the general rise in delayed discharge waits – suggests that something has gone seriously wrong in the transition from hospital to home or residential care during the time when we know social care spending has fallen dramatically.”

Chris Ham, chief executive of thinktank The King’s Fund, said: “The NHS and social care face huge challenges – addressing financial pressures and improving quality of care in the short term, and meeting the challenges posed by demographic change and changing health needs in the long term. This demands new thinking and radical changes to services.”

In a separate move, elderly patients could be given their own personal NHS worker to oversee their health and social care.

Ministers are considering giving older patients one-to-one care as they move between hospitals, homes and GP practices.

The single “named individual” would manage all care needs for elderly patients from arranging physiotherapy to home help and medical care.

Senior NHS officials have said that as many as 40 per cent of older people being cared for in hospitals could be being treated elsewhere.

But Labour warned that patients caught up in the “A&E crisis” would take little comfort from the plans. Shadow health minister Jamie Reed said: “If ministers think they’ve found the answer to the problems in England’s A&Es, they are sorely mistaken.

“Cuts to social care services have left greater numbers of older people attending A&E because they aren’t getting the support they need. A&Es are suffering from the break-up of the successful NHS Direct service and the closure of NHS walk-in centres across England. Thousands of nursing jobs have been axed on David Cameron’s watch, leaving hospitals understaffed too.”