Fix social care to end delayed discharge - Rennie
North East Fife MSP Willie Rennie has today questioned health secretary Neil Gray over long waits for hospital admission and the government’s failure to support the social care sector.
Figures published earlier this month showed that on average in April 108 hospital beds in Fife were occupied by someone who could have been discharged. Separately figures obtained by Mr Rennie showed that in late April there were 274 people in Fife waiting for a care package.
Mr Rennie questioned the health secretary during a topical question in the Scottish Parliament.
Speaking in the Holyrood chamber, Willie Rennie said: “I receive regular reports of ambulances queued for a long time outside Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. And whilst the government wasted endless amounts of time and energy on the centralisation of the care service, they neglected the reform that the actual sector was requiring, because that’s where the central problem is.
“We don’t have the flow through the hospital into social care, so where is the brand new plan to sort out social care in Scotland?”
After the question session he added: “The SNP promised in 2015 to end delayed discharge in hospitals within a year. A decade later, it's unacceptable that a lack of care at home or in the community is keeping so many people stuck in hospital. Staff and patients have been failed by a government that never invests in them, but to wasted four years and £30 million on a failed takeover of social care instead.
“Now that they have ditched it, we need to see a proper investment in staff and services that are so overstretched in order to prevent people from being stuck in hospital longer than necessary.”