Please see a template press release below on the impact of the social care crisis on local hospitals, and promoting Liberal Democrat calls for a Carer’s Minimum Wage.
You can adapt for your area using figures broken down by NHS trust using this data sheet.
This template is for use in England only as health policy is devolved.
Hospitals in [AREA] lose [INSERT FIGURE - COLUMN H] bed days to social care backlogs
New research published by the Liberal Democrats has revealed the impact of the social care crisis on the NHS in [AREA- COLUMN B], with medically fit patients left stuck in hospital beds waiting for care.
The figures reveal that [INSERT FIGURE - COLUMN H] bed days were lost to delayed discharges from hospital in May. Of these, the majority of bed days lost involved patients who had been stuck in hospital for three weeks or more.
Delayed discharges take place when medically fit patients are unable to leave hospital, often due to a lack of social care. Across the country, the NHS lost over 128,800 bed days to delayed discharges from hospital, up 32% on the same period last year.
The Liberal Democrats warned that the government’s failure to support councils and tackle the social care crisis was having a “disastrous” impact on local NHS services, piling pressure on hospitals while elderly and vulnerable patients are left waiting for the care they need. The party is calling for the introduction of a Carer’s Minimum Wage, set at £2 above the minimum wage, to help address the huge number of job vacancies in social care.
Liberal Democrat [INSERT SPOKESPERSON FOR AREA] said:
“Social care services are so important in their own right but these worrying figures show the disastrous impact the social care crisis is having on our local health services.
“Far too many elderly and vulnerable people are ending up stuck in hospital when they are ready to leave, because there simply isn’t the care available for them at home or in the community.
“This is causing unneeded pain and distress while piling even more pressure on our already overstretched hospitals.
“The Liberal Democrats know that you can’t fix the crisis in the NHS without fixing the crisis in social care. And government must support local councils in meeting this challenge. We want to see the Government start valuing carers properly by bringing in a Carer’s Minimum Wage, and provide the extra funding for this. This would help reduce soaring vacancies in social care and tackle the crisis facing the NHS.”
ENDS
Notes to editor
Full research: the data is sourced from NHS England.
This shows, for each acute NHS trust in England:
- The number of people at the end of each quarter who were ready to be discharged from hospital but had not been discharged by midnight
- The total number of excess bed days accrued by the patients in hospital waiting to be discharged, on a snapshot date each quarter. This is recorded as the number of days for those waiting 7+/14+/21+ days for discharge. Please note these can’t be summed, because the 7+ figure includes all those waiting 14+ or 21+ days.