Bed blocking charge shows hospital 'has a problem'

A Jersey care leader says the introduction of charges of more than £500 a day for patients who stay in hospital after being declared fit to leave shows there is "clearly a problem".

Chair of the Jersey Care Federation Cheryl Kenealy said she has had a conversation with the Health Minister Deputy Tom Binet and believes the charge has been introduced as "more of a deterrent" for patients as opposed to a way of raising revenue.

"I think the reasons that it's implemented is to try and stop problems from occurring as opposed to penalising people," she said.

She said there were many reasons people end up staying in hospital despite having been discharged - a practice known as "bed blocking".

Kenealy said: "I think this decision has been taken because there is clearly a problem in the hospital and I think it may be a problem that's bigger than what we're all actually aware of.

"But there are some people that bed block for prolonged periods of time that are able to leave hospital, have been given a package of care in the community but choose not to take it.

"The general hospital is not a hotel and it's not somewhere that should be seen as such."

She said she believed there was enough capacity in the island's care system at the moment.

"However, we do need more nursing beds, more dementia beds but there are plans in the future for those to be built, they're already under way," Kenealy said.

She said while social workers aimed to give "all patients a choice" when being discharged from hospital, options often depended on where there was capacity.

Kenealy said: "You may have a specific care home in mind, if that care home hasn't got a bed, that shouldn't give you the opportunity of staying in hospital to wait for that bed.

"We all want choice... however, we can't always provide the solutions that people actually want.

"So it may mean that you need to take a bed in a care home that isn't a care home of your choice while you wait for another bed to become available at the care home of your choice."

She said she expected the new charge to make a difference to some people, who were worried about being charged, but added that there would be some people that were unbothered or would be happy to pay the charge.

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