Still more than 1,700 stuck in hospital

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today appealed to the Health Secretary to finally take action on the crisis in social care as new Public Health Scotland figures show there are still more than 1,700 people waiting in hospitals, with little change over the last three months.

In June 2023, the average number of beds occupied per day in hospital was 1,730. The number of days spent in hospital by people whose discharge was delayed was 51,905. Last June this figure was 50,340.

In 2015, the SNP Government promised to “eradicate delayed discharges from the system” within a year.  

Mr Cole-Hamilton commented:    

“Month after month, these figures remain persistently high, but they still won’t prompt urgent action from the Health Secretary to remedy them.

“Patients and staff can’t wait years for an ill-fated ministerial power grab of the sector. The Health Secretary must scrap this billion-pound bureaucracy and spend that money on staff and services instead.

“Scottish Liberal Democrats would support staff today by setting national standards and entitlements for users to drive up the quality of care and move quickly to reward staff with better pay, conditions and career progression through powerful national bargaining.”