Labour today revealed shocking figures showing thousands of elderly people will be trapped in hospital over Christmas when they could be back home with their loved ones.

Shadow Health Minister Liz Kendall MP said the number of delayed discharges from hospital, which could be avoided if elderly people had the right care and support in the community or at home, has soared by 33 percent over the last 3 years.

Over the last year, these delays – up on this time last year – have cost £225 million. This could have paid for 5,400 community nurses or an entire year of home care visits for over 30,000 older people.

Liz Kendall said:

“Families across the country want their elderly mums or dads home from hospital for Christmas. But under this Government, thousands more elderly people are stuck in hospital when they don’t need to be.

“This isn’t good for them, and it costs the public far more.

“Instead of focusing on what matters to patients and taxpayers, the Government has wasted three years and £3 billion on an NHS reorganisation that nobody wanted and nobody voted for.

“David Cameron should apologise to families who can’t spend Christmas together because of his mishandling of the NHS.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1. 2,678 people had a delayed discharge from hospital in November, the last month for which figures are available: http://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/delayed-transfers-of-care/.

2. 73,733 days in total were lost to delayed discharges from hospitals in November, up from 70,718 in November 2012 and 55,332 in August 2010, when these figures were first collected. 865,595 days were lost over the year. The number of days lost since August 2010 is now 2.66 million.

3. Each excess bed day costs £260 (http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_131160.pdf), meaning that delayed discharges cost the NHS £225,054,700 in the year to November 2013.

4. The cost of employing a nurse is £41,598 (NHS Staff Earnings estimates, July to Sept 2011). The money spent on delayed discharges in the year to November 2013 could have paid for 5,410 nurses.

5. The average cost of an hour of home care in England is now £13.37, according to an FoI request to local authorities from Liz Kendall. The money spent on delayed discharges in the year to November 2013 could have paid for 16,832,812 hours of home care. The average care user receives ten hours of home care a week, or 520 hours a year. This means that 32,370 people could have had their home care funded.