Some hospital patients in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot will continue to be transferred to care homes to free up hospital beds, health chiefs have decided. Many elderly patients who are well enough to be discharged but who require a package of care get stuck in hospital because that package of care is not available - and that slows the flow of patients coming into wards and compounds pressures at the front door.
Swansea Bay University Health Board decided last autumn to commission up to 100 "transitional" care home beds to support these medically fit patients. Funding was set aside up to the end of March this year, but the scheme has now been extended to the end of November.
The number of care home beds being used at any one time has been 45 to 50, chief operating officer Inese Robotham told a meeting of the health board. She said she hoped this number would increase.
