Jocelyn Ullmer, a woman from West Sussex, spent nine months in hospital waiting for a suitable care home placement and her health deteriorated as a result. Her mother, Sylvia Hubbard, stated that they attempted to get Jocelyn out of the hospital, but no one was willing to take her. Across England, approximately 60% of patients who were deemed fit to leave remained in the hospital by the end of the average day, according to data. The major hurdle was a lack of beds in other settings, such as care homes and community hospitals.
In June 2022, Jocelyn was admitted to the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth with a urinary tract infection. She had been residing at a high-needs care home in Fareham, Hampshire, and was placed on a general ward after arriving in the hospital. Despite an unsuccessful attempt in October 2022 to move her to a care home, she was passed between various hospital wards for nine months. Her mother reported that Jocelyn did not obtain the specialized learning support that someone like her requires, and that she lost the ability to speak, becoming mute.
Jocelyn’s situation is not an isolated case, and persistent understaffing across all care settings is at the heart of the issue, according to Patricia Marquis, the director for England at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). The NHS has been awarded a £1.6bn funding package over the next two years to address the problem, and it has already implemented 10,000 virtual ward beds to aid patients in receiving care at home. Additionally, the government is attempting to tackle the issue of delayed discharges by creating “step-down” wards and boosting social worker recruitment.
The study discovered that delayed hospital discharges caused by a lack of care staff were not restricted to England, with Scotland stating that 70% of delays were due to care system unavailability. Wales had no comparable data, however, there were around 1,570 people waiting to leave hospitals in August, down from roughly 1,750 in April, which was when post-pandemic data began to be collected. A lack of available beds in specialist care facilities within West Sussex was the major contributing factor to Jocelyn’s nine-month hospital stay, despite regular meetings with social workers to discuss care plans.
Sylvia Hubbard believes the social workers and hospital staff who cared for Jocelyn did everything they could to find a suitable placement for her. She says Jocelyn is now a shadow of her former self and is bedridden most of the time, but she has finally begun to talk again after moving to a home in Southampton. There is significant pressure on the health and social care system, with increasing demand for services, but a limited number of places that can deliver the required level of care, according to a spokesperson for West Sussex County Council
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