A senior emergency medicine doctor has spoken of his desperation to keep his elderly parents out of hospital. Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said hospitals are like “lobster traps” as they are easy to get into but hard to get out of.
Recent figures show than in October an average of 13,163 hospital beds per day were occupied by people ready to be discharged in a new monthly high, which was just over 300 more than in September according to the PA news agency. Numbers have advanced since June, when the average was 11,590.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Dr Boyle said: “Hospitals are like lobster traps – they’re easy to get into and hard to get out of. If social care was able to do its job in the way we want it to, these poor people wouldn’t be stranded in hospital.
“I have elderly parents and I’m desperate to keep them out of hospital. For someone who is frail, hospital is often a bad place for them. They’re being harmed by being in hospital.”
NHS data has shown that just 40% of hospital patients were discharged when they were ready in October. This was unchanged from September but down from 41% in July and 43% in June.
London had the largest regional peak with an average of 49% of patients in London last month when they were ready, compared with 32% in the South West and 31% in the North West. The figure for south-east England and north-east England & Yorkshire was 41%, with 43% for eastern England and 44% for the Midlands.
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