HAMPSHIRE County Council has hit back this week against accusations of dropping a "bed- block bombshell" which councillors insist are "far from true". They are emphatic that by contrast HCC has introduced a "well managed system" which has achieved "excellent results" in helping people out of hospital once they are ready to leave. The alarm over hefty bed-blocking fines occurred last week when it was revealed that the county had handed over nearly £500,000 to the NHS for failing to arrange prompt community care for patients who were ready to move out of hospital and into a nursing home environment. Since January this year, hospital trusts have been able to fine social services £100 per person per day for failing to put care packages in place for those ready to be discharged. The fines, which come into play after the second day, have cost HCC £481,00 for the last 10 months, averaging around £12,000 per week. While these figures are county-wide, the figures show that £136,100 (over a quarter) of this has been awarded for delayed discharge penalties to North Hampshire Hospital at Basingstoke. To cushion the bed-blocking blow the government handed out grants to every council to invest in preventative services. Deemed a "delayed discharge hot spot" due to its position as "a large county with a large proportion of older people", Hampshire received £1.2m in 2003/4 and a further £1.9m on April 1 this year to cover the period 2004/5. It is money which HCC's social care spokesman Felicity Hindson believes has been used wisely to help alleviate the problem. In a statement this week she pointed out that the number of people across the county delayed from leaving hospital due to social care reasons fell from 124 people in March 2003 to a current figure of 26 people, representing only two fifths of the total number of delays. "The fines we have had to pay when they have been delayed are well below what was expected from the delayed discharge 'hotspot' which is Hampshire," said Mrs Hindson. "This has come about thanks to the efforts of hardworking staff and considerable investment from the county council - £7 million extra last year - and from government. "This has seen us place extra social workers in hospitals, buy more community based schemes such as Home from Hospital and Rapid Response, as well as purchase extra nursing home beds and home care." Mrs Hindson stressed that HCC was doing everything possible for now, but that further improvements could be expected once the first of 500 new nursing home beds come on line early in the new year. The innovative £60 million ENHANCE (Extra Nursing Homes and Nursing Care Extensions) project - thought to be the first in the country - will see nursing home places built on county council land attached to its residential homes and some on NHS land. They are desperately needed to replenish nursing home stock being lost to development or due to unachievable government legislation. Work is already well under way on a 40-bed two-storey purpose-built home at Marlfield in Alton which is expected to be one of the first to be commissioned in the spring. "We are also working with health partners on an innovative pilot project to prevent older people identified as having a high chance of needing hospital care from needing to go to hospital, to bring the figures down still further," said Mrs Hindson. She added: "No 'bombshell' then – just a well thought through, well managed system which is bringing real returns to our most vulnerable elderly residents."
