Delays in finding social care for patients is threatening to “capsize” the NHS, the British Medical Association (BMA) has warned.
Latest figures show patients spent a record 200,000 days in beds they did not need in England in October, up 25% year on year.
President of the British Geriatrics Society Eileen Burns said: “Delayed transfers of care are personally disastrous for older patients who are frail.
“Frail older people who are nursed in bed are at great risk of losing their mobility if they aren’t supported and encouraged to get out of bed.
“The impact of 10 days of bed rest on muscle strength has been estimated to be equivalent to 10 years of ageing.
“People who were able to just about manage to get up to potter about, who didn’t need help to walk, are very unlikely to get moving again. People with dementia get more confused.”
Known as ‘delayed transfers of care’, the NAO (National Audit Office) estimated that, in the case of older patients in England, the unnecessary days in hospital cost £800m more than last year.
The BMA found evidence of deep financial problems in social care across England.
Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent predicts a £256m shortfall in social care, according to the latest figures from its STP (sustainability and transformation plans).
The eight London authorities in the north-east London STP, which stretches from Barking and Dagenham to Hackney, face a shortfall in social care of £238m.
In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, social care faces a financial black hole of £350m by the end of the decade, a third of the £1bn total defect, which includes the health service shortage.
BMA council chair Mark Porter said: “Many of the STPs and future financial sustainability of these areas is predicated on being able to integrate health and social care.
“If nobody has any confidence that the black hole in health is going to be filled, there is even less confidence that this black hole in social care will be. That will imperil the delivery of the STP programme.”
Mr Porter said social care had been “cut to the bone” adding an all-party solution needed to be found for the problem.
