News story

5th July 2001

Prime Minister Backs Local MP's Call For Action Over "Bed-Blocking"

The Prime Minister has described the problem of elderly people being unable to be discharged from hospital as “one of the biggest problems facing the NHS”. Mr. Blair was speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday (4th July) in response to a question from Northavon MP Steve Webb. Steve Webb drew the Prime Minister’s attention to what he called the “crisis in social services funding”. He highlighted the fact that Bristol City Council has now been forced to adopt a policy of not placing an elderly person from hospital into residential care until two elderly people had left residential care—usually because they had died. This meant growing numbers of elderly people getting stuck in hospital when they did not need to be there, and in turn caused cancelled operations and delayed treatment in the NHS because of lack of beds. Responding, the Prime Minister recognised the seriousness of the problem and claimed that additional money had been put in to social services. He also stressed the need for health services and social services departments to work more closely together to reduce delays in moving elderly people into appropriate care.

Commenting on the reply, Steve Webb said:

“I welcome the Prime Minister’s recognition of the seriousness of this problem. But he must now take urgent action to tackle the serious underfunding of council social services departments. Keeping elderly people in hospital after their treatment is finished is not fair on them, and is not fair on the other NHS patients whose operations and treatment are being delayed”.

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Note to editors: Statistics produced by North Bristol NHS Trust show that the number of people each week facing delayed discharge from hospital (ie “bed-blocking”) because of a lack of local authority funding has risen from around five per week when Bristol’s policy was introduced to around twenty per week now. This in turn means more cancelled operations and delays in treatment.