The Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt has written to a local authority praising them for reducing the amount of time patients stay in a hospital bed.
Mr Hunt wrote to Nottinghamshire County Council’s chief executive congratulating the Nottingham area for having the biggest improvement in discharge delays in the three months to May 2017.
He wrote an ‘improvement on such a scale is very impressive and testament to the hard work and dedication of your staff’ and the local authority is ‘a real example to others’.
During this time the council’s social care teams and health partners, including the Trusts that run QMC, City Hospital and King’s Mill, have reduced the patient discharge delays from 6,451 days to 4,302 compared to the same period the previous year.
Councillor Stuart Wallace, chairman of Nottinghamshire County Council’s Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee, said: “Our hospital social care teams carry out a sterling job making sure people who are ready for discharge have all the care and support they need when they leave hospital.
“It’s an honour to receive a letter from the Secretary of State for Health acknowledging and congratulating our team on their high performance in reducing discharge delays locally.
“We know more work needs to be done, which is why we as a Council are investing an extra £2.57m on our work to reduce hospital pressures in the county while still providing a high quality care service for Nottinghamshire’s residents.”
Delays attributable to social care in the county reduced by two thirds – from 887 days to 324 over the same period compared to the year before.
