ALMOST half a million bed days were lost to Scotland’s NHS last year because patients were stuck in hospital despite being well enough to leave.
The official delayed discharge figures for 2017/18 showed 1 in 13 beds were occupied by people who didn’t need them for medical reasons.
The most common reason was a lack of community care arrangements for them.
However the data also showed a six per cent fall in delayed discharges last year, down from 527,099 bed days to 494,123, which was welcomed by the Scottish Government.
The average number of beds occupied was 1354 per day, down from 1444 in 2016/17.
With the average cost around £234 per bed per day, the total last year was around £115m.
The Scottish LibDems said the bill for taxpayers was “eye-watering”, especially as the SNP pledged to end so-called ‘bed blocking’ almost three years ago.
In February 2015, then health Secretary Shona Robison told the BBC: “I want over the course of this year to eradicate delayed discharge out of the system.”
However delayed discharge remains a stubborn problem for the NHS.
Last year, 7.8% of beds were occupied because of it, ranging from 3.1% in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to 18.9% in NHS Western Isles.
The most common reason for patients to be kept in hospital was they were waiting for care arrangements to be put in place, which accounted for 34% of delayed discharges.
Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: “The real cost is to the patients who are in the wrong care settings, causing misery and uncertainty to themselves and their families.
“With 10% of beds taken up by delayed discharge, this SNP mismanagement is clearly causing capacity issues elsewhere in the NHS.
“This clearly points to a situation where demands are not being met and a growing concern that our acute hospitals are facing a growing beds crisis.”
LibDem health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “These are eye-watering sums of money for what, in the majority of cases, is an entirely avoidable problem.
“Most patients are waiting on a care home place, social care support to enable them to live in their own home or for an assessment to be conducted.
"The cost of delayed discharges to the NHS, patients and their families is immense.
“SNP ministers must now set out their plans for reducing avoidable delayed discharges and the progress they expect to be made tackling it over the coming months."
Labour’s Anas Sarwar added: “Hundreds of patients each month are languishing unnecessarily in hospital beds when they could be receiving appropriate care at home.
“The vast majority of these patients are aged over 75. The failure to properly tackle the social care crisis and delays in care assessments – the result of the SNP government’s £1.5bn cut to council budgets – are causing this multi-million-pound scandal.”
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the numbers were down 9% on 2015/16.
She said: "The integration of health and social care will enable us to make long-term, sustainable progress to reduce the level of delayed discharge.
“I have already made clear that one of my main priorities as Health Secretary is to increase the pace of this reform so that more people can benefit.
"To support integration, we have transferred nearly half a billion pounds from the NHS into social care and integration in this financial year, and the health budget will increase by almost £2bn by the end of this Parliament."
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