The case of Irish Sibley, an 89-year-old woman who was medically fit to leave hospital but couldn’t get out for six months due to difficulties finding social care, may sound extreme. But cases like this are more common than you might imagine and it highlights a deepening social care crisis in the UK.
Sibley was trapped on a ward at Bristol Royal infirmary because the community health care provider tried but failed to find her a suitable nursing home place.
Nuffield Trust, a health thinktank, has said that the number of patients trapped in hospital despite being fit to leave is three times higher than official data shows. It said that far more hospital beds were taken up by patients classed as “delayed transfers of care” than NHS England’s counting system detected.
We want to hear your experiences. Do you work in the NHS and see instances like this all the time? Or Have you or a relative been stuck for longer than anticipated in hospital? How long for? What issues did it create for you? Help us build a picture of the scale of this problem in the UK.
