50 patients a day do not need beds at Cambridge University Hospitals

More than 50 patients on an average day remain in beds they no longer need at Cambridge University Hospitals.

Newly-released figures from NHS England revealed that patients at CUH NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals, spent 1,738 days waiting to be discharged or moved to a different care facility.

The days add up to the equivalent of more than four-and-a-half years of waiting time.

The figures for May, the latest month for which data is available, suggested that 76 per cent of these delays were caused by problems with the NHS and 18 per cent by issues with social care.

A ‘delayed transfer of care’ occurs when a patient remains in a bed after being officially declared ready for transfer. Patients must be safe to transfer and signed off by both a doctor and a multidisciplinary team, which could include social or mental health care workers, before they can be classified in this way.

The figures do not include delays in transferring a patient between wards, or from one acute hospital to another.

A spokesperson for the NHS said: “Patients who are well enough to leave hospital should be able to do so at the earliest opportunity.

“The latest figures show 1,258 more beds were available in May 2018 than in the same month a year ago due to the action taken to reduce delayed transfers of care.”

A report on delivering care for older people released last week by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) highlighted concerns about government targets.

A CQC spokesperson said: “As our report highlights, there is too much ineffective co-ordination of local health and care services – leading to fragmented care for older people. Our report recommends a single joint framework for measuring the performance of how agencies collectively deliver improved outcomes for older people.”

Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner has previously called for investment in social care to tackle the issue.