Bed blocking

Bring back cottage hospitals!

my son-in-law is in stoke mandeville spinal unit, was told two weeks ago they were sending him home even though the adaption work to his house has not started but my son, his partner, has cleared one room and they have delivered a hospital bed, hoist and other equipment including medication but still waiting to be moved to home, he is getting very upset (he is paralysed from the chest down),can only move his head everything has to be done for him which my son is prepared to help out with but everything is being held up while they trying to find carers etc. because of my age and the virus i cannot go and help them so i am getting very frustrated and worried for them both.Also they are moving patients from the main hospital into the spinal unit because of the virus. Sorry rant over, just fingers crossed he will be home soon.

Care homes are refusing to allow people (who they sent to hospital, sometimes inappropriately) to go back to their homes.

This should not be allowed. Its the worst time to leave someone stranded and homeless

Some of the over 70s who are extremely get packages which are barely enough for a few days but certainly not enough if a carer who is also isolating lives in the home. Many who are entitled are not getting them. Most over 70s are in a dire situation if they have no family living locally, and that means very locally.

They can ask the authorities or charities for help and are directed to ask their neighbours. If they have shopped on line for years but just twice a month, they are dropped. The very disabled and chronically ill have applied, some were successful, other not, all slots had gone.

In most neighbourhoods people are isolating so "registered volunteers" are also isolating.

The virus reduces us to a local problem. Everyone looks after those in their street, when they can leave their homes. Speak through windows, leave a meal on the doorstep, if they're on line offer to advocate for them to register with a supermarket as vulnerable.

Families could be too far away and not allowed to travel to their loved one to bring shopping.

The vulnerable have been told not to put a note in their window if they need help as crooks have taken advantage in some places.

This is the very reason that politician said the other day that there should be no invasive care for the elderly …….. however, not lot seems to have changed that was in the olover the years...just more publicity ...one of my jobs years ago, in the NHS I was to try to find beds for recovered but unable to cope alone, elderly patients ! ..and that was in the days before selling any assets became the norm ...it was a thankless task ! I could be on the phone all day with no results ..having to send patients hundreds of miles away from home. In some cultures it is normal to look after an elderly member of the family ….sadly nowadays even those with a spare room, not working, no health issues do not see this as their responsibility ……..in my case there is no one and I am signed up to DNAR but if possible would travel to Switzerland (except it costs £12,000) and if I died of natural causes whilst waiting, the money is lost !!!! I am mean, so I would have to haunt them ……..that money could have gone to charity but there is no refund I have two powers of Attorney, one for medical and one for financial purposes, a paid up funeral policy et al,so no one will have to do much when I die...….

Hi Chaitriona and SodaPop, yes I know my daughters care home and many others have been prepared to totally lock down with staff there 24/7 to protect the residents which it was so heartbreaking to hear they could be forced to take residents who may have virus. I know we are living in extraordinary times but it is very worrying and quite upsetting to slowly learn of plight of vulnerable groups and how much misinformation and confusion is out there. I do worry that shielded and vulnerable groups may have access to volunteers for shopping etc but healthcare be non existent or very limited?. Justifiably most supermarkets are limiting home deliveries now,to get them via Sainsburys however you have to be registered as someone who is being shielded which is quite a narrow group. What's happening with all the over 70s who were told to self isolate but not shielded? The disabled? Some people are lucky enough to have neighbours and family who can help. Many have not.

It's already there Chaitriona some care staff are now living in the residential homes to provide 24 hour care for the people living there. These care staff are often low paid workers with minimal training but are proving themselves to be real heroes.

Fully agree with you, Dorset cupcake. My daughter’s partner is a care worker in a nursing home for ex-service men and women. He also normally cares for my daughter as she is chronically ill but now they are isolating from one another. Heaven help the patients and staff and their families if/when the virus gets into care homes.

A relative has just been discharged after two months in hospital. On at least three occasions I was informed she was medically fit for discharge, but the Home where she lives would not take her back until they had secured additional funding as her needs had increased. Meanwhile she developed other problems, including norovirus.
Apparently no additional funding has been procured. I am not sure whether she was safer in hospital or in the Home, where no doubt there is more likelihood of infection.

A friend in my book group has told us that social services here in Scotland “are on their knees”. She drove across the country to fetch medicine for her mother and is going once a day to make an evening meal for her aunt, sharing the care with her cousin. She would normally only visit her aunt two or three times a week. She is of retirement age herself. I think social services are having to call on families to do more where people have any family. Of course care services have lost staff like all other key services and are having to reduce the services they normally offer and always struggling even in normal times. Another friend who was paralysed at birth by polio can’t have her care worker for personal care as she is too vulnerable if she were to be infected. She doesn’t think she would qualify for intubation if it was needed. Her care worker takes her laundry away but she is struggling to wash herself. People who are disabled are in a very vulnerable situation in this crisis. I know of others who rely on home delivery of food in normal times but now can’t get slots because everyone else is using home deliveries. Younger disabled people can find it particularly difficult as they may be housebound but don’t qualify for supermarkets special help with accessing deliveries because they are not over seventy or in the severely vulnerable category ie having chemotherapy and so on. The point made here about Coronavirus patients needing care when leaving hospital is a worrying one and will put extra pressure on a system which is struggling.

Care homes are facing a terrifying battle. My daughter works in a care home and her manager was in tears when told had to accept new residents who may well have virus. They know they have totally inadequate PPE and isolating residents especially those with dementia can be almost impossible. If the virus gets into home it will decimate residents. Carers are still doing home care visits but with woefully inadequate PPE. All these carers are terrified for both their own and those they care for health,but they are doing their best. With absolutely no disrespect to any NHS workers please remember the social care workers who have even less PPE, no sick pay and often less protection of rights than NHS workers. No one seems to be fund raising for them?. The health and social care system was on its knees before this crisis,you can only imagine in your worst nightmares how it will fare in the next few weeks.

Of course it comes down to money. Responsibility shifted from NHS to local councils 30 odd years ago without anything like enough funding, and that gap has got steadily worse.
I do wonder how the prime minister has the nerve to tell us how he values, doctors, nurses and carers. Not so much that he wasn't ready to see parts shaved off and sold to profit-making US companies, and to accept the Home Secretary's labelling of care workers as unskilled. He, she and the rest of the government should be banging their own heads with their saucepan lids.

JayLucy by the same token, all the cottage hospitals that were closed willy nilly in favour of these massive general hospitals where people can't find their way around. Progress, eh!

It's a great shame that the decision makers didn't think ahead to a few years in the future before they closed and often demolished all of the geriatric hospitals and wings in hospitals!
They would have had all of the future changes in population available at the time but I think they just decided it would no longer come under "health" but "social care" so they could pass the buck on to the county and borough councils.
Shortage of nurses? It was known in the 1980s that due to a drop in birth rate that there would be a need to take in every school leaver into nursing , to be able to replace the ones that would have been due to retire and they did nothing to try and address the shortfall.
It's a great shame that the CEOs of every hospital no longer has to start from the bottom of the pile like the old hospital secretaries used to have to - people are no longer patients, they are just another cost to the system. Just don't get me started on the amount of NHS money that is wasted by the pen pushers!

Bed blocking in general is a long-standing problem in the NHS. When I was in hospital with broken bones at least half the ladies in my ward said they were well enough to go home but there was no care package in place to allow them to do so.
I do think in this situation it’s good that hotels are helping out but there needs to be a long term solution to bed blocking.

As someone with severe copd I find some of these posts very scarey.
I wish I could put it all to the back of my mind but I just can't. My anxiety levels are high at the moment. ?

Yes, hotels are helping out.

Dear Polnan
Thankfully not everyone thinks I'm strange.
I have been a nurse, midwife, health visitor etc etc and while i believe in treating people with care and respect there comes a time when just existing is a nightmare for many elderly people.
Better to offer an option!

It is extremely sad that some of the elderly that get discharged from hospital still need some help to live independently the only thing is at the moment there are not enough home carers
to help them. I am not completely sure but are all the normal carers that visit elderly at home still working?

me too BettyBoop

a friend of ours was stuck in hospital with really bad stuff going on,. needed hospital,
sent her home yesterday, her husband to look after her, and he needs looking after..
so heard that she is back in hospital in terrible pain,, they sent her home initially, cos they needed her bed... she wasn`t a bed blocker by any means... so that was a waste of time..
I dread being ill, at my age, it seems they will just leave me to die.. at least as BB 49 says, give us a pill, make it a quick release..

I fear that is what it could come to...

Just give me a pill, play Wagner and wave me off!!
Problem solved?

Good news for my area. The Guttman Centre at Stoke Mandeville has been converted to house 250 beds.

One of our local small hotels have said today that they are going to be taking in people who can be discharged from hospital but need a few more days care.

Some care homes are refusing to take recovered CV patients in case they introduce the illness to other residents.

I agree with you silversurf. It's up to local councils because it comes under the social care umbrella. I received a very unsatisfactory "political waffle" reply from my local councillor when I raised this issue.