|
 |
 | | | | | |||||||||||||||||||
| | You are in: UK: England | |||||||||||||||||||||
 | | Friday, 4 January, 2002, 18:45 GMT Cash is cure for bed blocking  Bed blocking is caused by lack of cash The chairman of a report into bed blocking in Birmingham has pointed to a lack of funding as the basic cause of the problem. Labour MP Terry Davis, who headed a special investigation into the lack of beds, said more cash, better management and improved communication are the solution. "I've had concerns about social services in Birmingham for many years, but I had not appreciated the scale of the problem," Mr Davis, MP for Hodge Hill in Birmingham, said. Mr Davis said one doctor told the commission: "Birmingham doesn't care about old people". The independent commission was set up after a bed-blocking crisis in West Midlands' hospitals last spring. 'Still fragile' Reports in the summer of 2001 said hundreds of beds were blocked in the city by elderly patients who were fit to leave. The problem is that the city's social services cannot afford their care. The situation was described at a news conference on Friday as 'still fragile'. The report issued on Friday said the fundamental cause of the problem remains lack of funding with under investment by successive governments since 1993.
But another major factor was a lack of trust between social services and the health authority. Birmingham councillor Susanna McCorry agreed: "If we had worked better together maybe we would have been able to work through some of the issues facing the council." The report said a partnership body should be established to make sure elderly people are properly and adequately cared for. Hard-hitting Geoff Scaife, chief executive of the Birmingham Health Authority, said: "In social services there is an almost complete lack of good management information." "Until that is sorted out it is very difficult for us to plan coherently for the future." A spokesman for the city council said: "We knew there would be hard-hitting criticism and we know we need to restructure our social services." He said a reduction in the number of beds in Birmingham over the past 10 years is the main cause of the problem. | |   See also: Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top England stories now:  Links to more England stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||
|
Links to more England stories |
 | | ^^ Back to top News Front Page | World | UK | UK Politics | Business | Sci/Tech | Health | Education | Entertainment | Talking Point | In Depth | AudioVideo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To BBC Sport>> | To BBC Weather>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII|News Sources|Privacy  |
E-mail this story to a friend