A HEALTH worker responsible for helping move patients out of hospital has said she has to use three computer screens to do her job.
Leanne Watkins said she backed a recommendation for a joint IT system between the NHS and local authorities which are responsible for providing care at home and placing people into residential care homes.
The recommendation is one of 11 made following an extensive audit of the process for discharging patients stuck in hospitals across Gwent despite being well enough to leave.
Audit Wales looked at how the area’s Aneurin Bevan University Health Board worked with its five local authorities, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen , with figures from 2023/24 examined.
Ms Watkins is part of an “integrated team” of NHS and council social services staff based at Monnow Vale the community hospital in Monmouth and told Monmouthshire County Council’s scrutiny committee: “I agree we need to streamline good practice and IT that would be a huge benefit.
“I currently have to have three computers just to understand social services, and for colleagues to have a health computer, it shouldn’t be happening in this day and age when you’ve got an integrated team.”
Ms Watkins said at present the patient with the longest stay in Monnow Vale has been there 40 days but before the integrated team came into the hospital its longest stay was 365 days, meaning a patient had spent a full year in hospital.
The longest say in Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall is currently 66 days due to “complex issues” but Ms Watkins said the patient has a clear discharge plan.
Jenny Jenkins, Monmouthshire’s head of adult services, said the Audit Wales report showed there are on average 250 patients a month in Gwent hospitals who with the right support at home, or a care home place, could leave but unable to do so. That cost the Aneurin Bevan board around £27m a year based on an average bed cost of £500.
The figure for patients from Monmouthshire is around 53 a month, which Ms Jenkins described as “about a fifth” of the Gwent total.
Figures have improved over the past year and the Monmouthshire figure for May this year was 51. Ms Jenkins said there is a trend in reducing the length of delays.
The top five social care reasons for delayed discharge for Monmouthshire residents are awaiting a joint assessment that needs a social care and health assessment, waiting for a nursing home place to be available, waiting for a social care assessment, needing a home care package to be put in place and for a care home manager to make an assessment.
Audit Wales, which has conducting reviews for all health board areas, has made recommendations on discharge planning, discharging patients over seven days which has been trialed in Gwent, clarifying what care will be put in place, for the health board to review how it approaches “risk” so beds aren’t “unnecessarily” occupied and how its policies are applied.
It also said the quality and sharing of information needs to be improved including sharing IT and ultimately a joint system and how patient and carers’ experience is recorded.
