SOME of the most vulnerable patients are waiting more than six months to get out of Glasgow hospitals because of a lack of specialist facilities, new figures suggest.
Figures show 17 patients who are categorised ‘code 9’ and have complex needs were delayed in Glasgow hospitals for more than six months in December.
Code 9 refers to patients where discharge is delayed because they are waiting for a place in a specialist facility or where no such facilities exist.
However, the latest ISDN figures show the total number of delayed discharges in Glasgow is steadily improving, from 192 in April last year to 134 in December.
Professor Adam Tomkins, Scottish Conservative candidate for Glasgow Anniesland, said: “While it’s welcome that delayed discharge is improving generally across Scotland, this is very much a hidden problem.
“We are talking here about people with very complex needs, and clearly a hospital ward is not the best place for them to be."
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Code 9 delays are complex cases, which are classified as such because the circumstances of these patients will often be outwith the immediate control of the local NHS and council partnership. "These patients can have very specialist needs and it may take a longer period of time to ensure the appropriate community support is available to allow them to be safely discharged from hospital."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel