SAM ROWLANDS, Member of the Welsh Parliament for North Wales, has called for appropriate level of funding for local councils to help ease pressures on hospital discharges.
Mr Rowlands, Shadow Health Minister, was speaking in the Senedd following a statement by Jeremy Miles, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on the new 50-day challenge to improve hospital discharge and community care.
He said: “I certainly welcome your acknowledgement of the problems with hospital discharge and the challenges with community care being delivered.
“It is fair to say that, across the board, pressures facing our NHS are systemic and long term. You will recognise the record waiting lists, which continue to rise, with patient pathways now north of 800,000. You’ll also recognise that 23.3% of the waits in Wales are a year or longer, with too many people languishing in pain for far too long.
“It is right to recognise that, sadly, in some hospitals, 20% of beds are occupied by patients who either are waiting to leave or who need to leave, and it’s creating record levels of demand on our health and care services.
“Ensuring that people who are ready for discharge aren’t taking up beds that are desperately needed is the big challenge, not just in Wales but across other health systems as well, and that needs to be acknowledged.”
Mr Rowlands also spoke about the important role of local authorities in helping to unblock some of the existing issues in the system.
He added: “We know that councils are overstretched and under pressure, and I welcome the additional £10 million that you’ve announced here today. I’d be interested to know how much you think that is going to satisfy those funding challenges that councils have at the moment, so that they can adequately undertake the duties that are put upon them.
“Because what we can’t see is a risk of a passing on of the buck of responsibility to our councils without the appropriate level of funding to enable them to deliver the things that are being asked of them.”
The Cabinet Secretary said much of the balance of £9 million will end up supporting local authorities in their responsibilities for care, so GPs supporting care homes, enabling people to be discharged into community beds, so that healthcare assessments can happen outside the hospital.
