WORK to limit the increase in delayed hospital discharges in South Ayrshire failed as figures show they almost doubled last year.

The delayed discharge of elderly patients in South Ayrshire, largely due to the lack of social care resources that would allow older patients to be moved, has been the main driver of the issue across NHS Ayrshire & Arran.

Delayed discharges are one of a number of areas used to compare health boards and health and social care partnerships.

South Ayrshire Council’s Service and Partnerships Performance Panel will consider South Ayrshire Integration Joint Board’s (IJB) annual performance report this week.

In 2023/24, the position was such that, rather than decrease the levels of delayed discharges, the IJB, which operates South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) on behalf of SAC and the NHS, had simply sought to restrict it to a rise of 25 per cent.

While the increase in delayed discharges was not as high in 2023/24 as the 115 per cent increase the previous year, at 96 per cent, it was well above the target figure.

That meant that instead of a target of 23,533 bed days taken up due to delayed discharges, the final figure for 2023/24 was 36,909.

Both North and East Ayrshire HSCPs saw significant increases in bed days lost through delayed discharge, but both are significantly lower than South Ayrshire.

East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire HSCP sat at 10,767 and 23,995 bed days lost in 2023/24. The report revealed a mixed bag of successes and failure to meet targets.

These include decreases relating to under 18s, including unplanned admissions (down 13.2 per cent), emergency attendances (down 18.1 per cent), unplanned bed days – acute services (down 2.8 percent), and emergency mental health bed days (down 83 percent), all of which improved on targets that had been set.

For over 18s, the figures for emergency department attendance (down 27.5 per cent), and emergency bed days – mental health (down 51.9 per cent) were positive.

However, a target to reduce the number of bed days in acute wards by one per cent ended up being an 11.8 per cent increase.

While there was a 19 per cent decrease the number of Emergency Bed Days (Geriatric Long Stay), it fell short of the 60 per cent target.

And the amount of patients who were able to spend the last six months of their life in the community did increase by 0.4 per cent, against a target of 1 per cent.

The report states: “The continued increase to the reduction of Unplanned Admissions in addition to similar continued achievements with ED Attendance and Emergency Bed Days (Mental Health).

“Whilst Unplanned Bed Days, Emergency Bed Days and Delayed Discharges has dominated the performance targets there has been significant service development undertaken with additional care at home recruitment balancing the reduction in capacity across commissioned services.”

The report lists some of the work being carried out to turn the tide:

  • Front door service activity reducing the need for admission
  • Hospital at Home service keeping people safe at home;
  • Reablement services increasing confidence, ability and progress
  • Racecourse Road assessment and review service continuing to reduce demand on service provision

The report also points out that the performance targets were set out in 2019, pre-pandemic, and have not changed since despite the huge pressure and upheaval of health and social care services.