Mastodawn

The use of 'escalation areas' in A&E dept.s has become normalised & while the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine sees this as 'big trouble' until there's a major disaster linked to corridor care, our political class & the news media are focussed elsewhere

The problem as always is the movement of patients through hospital systems, which is slowed down by problems of discharge to social care... & that is not going to be fixed anytime soon.

#NHS #health
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/30/ae-nhs-in-trouble-normalised-corridor-care-says-leading-uk-medic

A&Es in ‘big trouble’ because of ‘normalised’ corridor care, says leading UK medic

Emergency medicine specialist says improved social care and efficiency would help crisis in NHS

The Guardian

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Paul Brownjohn Dec 30

@ChrisMayLA6

I have been wondering for some time why the NHS don't implement some sort of half-way-house care system for patients who are blocking beds in acute medical or surgical wards but who don't need the nursing and medical care provided on a hospital ward. Of course, it might be better still to hand the patients needing a high level of care back to the NHS (as was the case in the past) leaving the local authorities to offer care only to the reasonably fit and healthy elderly.

Bed blocking due to the inability of the local authorities to provide suitable accommodation is paralyzing large parts of the NHS and something needs to be done to address this issue!

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Epistatacadam Dec 30

@Paulos_the_fog @ChrisMayLA6 they closed the convalescent homes for economy reasons and the modern NHS had no need of convalescence as it was an old fashioned concept that modern health care had shown to be rubbish.
Hubris always comes before nemesis.....

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Paul Brownjohn

@epistatacadam @ChrisMayLA6

I'm not sure that many of the hospitals in Eastbourne were for convalescence. All Saints was the big one - a sprawling cluster of Victorian buildings that included its own church. It had a reputation in the town that if you were admitted to that establishment, you only came out in a wooden box. It wasn't entirely true, but there was a grain of truth in that saying!

It was used for convalescence and for respite care for those living with relatives but for the most part, it was used for long term end of life care. The sort of care that is now the obligation of local authorities.