The President of the association of directors of adult social services (adass) had a go at hospital managers and the cheers could be heard across social services throughout the land. Richard Jones used to be my boss so I know he doesn’t like publically criticising colleagues in the NHS believing it to be counterproductive. So what provoked him to stick the boot in via a national news paper (Guardian 19/1/11)?
He was responding to a front page story that thousands of older patients are being forced to stay in hospital after they were fit enough to leave due to cuts in social services. He pointed out that the cuts haven’t yet happened they will come in with the new financial year in April. He pulled no punishes and stated that bed blocking was down to NHS inefficiencies not cuts in social care. He rammed the point home by stating that it was easier for hospital based colleagues to blame social services rather than look at their own actions. He followed this up with a volley of well aimed examples including closing hospital wards to save money, delays in transferring patients from one ward to another and hospital pharmacies being closed at weekends. If he had wanted extend his range of targets he could have targeted OT and Physio departments that are closed at weekends whilst hospital social workers have been put on 12 hour, seven day a week contracts to clear beds. He could have referred to the anecdotal evidence of consultants not being around on certain days to agree a discharge due to ” other commitments” and he could have said that some ward staff don’t help colluding with relatives in resisting sending a frail patient home because they think they should transfer to a care Home. I am remind of the case I was asked to look into where a doctor was incensed that a patient was still in one of his beds when he had said they were fit to be discharged a week ago only to discover the ward staff were holding on to the patient till a bed became available in the Nursing Home of her choice near where her family lived. But Richard is too nice a guy to really stick the boot in.