FEARS are mounting over the impact on patients and financial waste of the estimated £9m cost of bedblocking in Oxfordshire last year.

The concerns have been raised after it emerged this week that nearly half the number of beds in acute hospitals are being taken up by about four per cent of the trust’s patients.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust has 67 wards that provide 1,394 beds, with 151 of those set aside for children. However, around 600 of the remaining beds are taken up each month with long-term patients who are in hospital for 14 days or more, meaning that just four per cent patients are using nearly half the capacity.

Clinical services director Paul Brennan told a meeting of the trust’s board of directors that capacity was becoming its biggest challenge.

He said: “The number of patients who were in our beds for 14 days or more have made up a total of more than four per cent of our activity. But if we look at the bed days concerned, that is 46 per cent.

“So four per cent of our patients are using nearly 50 per cent of our resources.

“That is clearly becoming our number one challenge.”

In May, the trust had 13,024 patients of which 611 were long-term, compared to 12,398 patients in April, with 626 of them staying in hospital 14 days or more.

The board heard that of the 152 delayed transfers of care in May, 119 were within the trust, meaning patients had to stay in hospital instead of being moved home, into community hospitals or into nursing homes.

This rose to 131 delayed transfers within the trust out of the 157 the following month. The other patients were either in community hospitals or in Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust wards.

The trust, which runs Oxford’s John Radcliffe and Churchill hospitals and Banbury’s Horton General Hospital, as well as Oxford’s Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, launched a blitz on the problem in April.

During the week-long campaign – Breaking The Cycle – the trust said it brought in more care staff and patient transport services and offered earlier operation times in order to cut down on delayed transfers. However, Mr Brennan admitted that the 150 patients being stuck in hospital beds on average each month was the equivalent of filling six of the trust’s 67 wards.

With each ward costing around £1.5m a year to run, it is estimated that bedblocking could be costing up to £9m a year.

The most recent NHS England figures released revealed the trust was rated bottom in the country for bedblocking in May.

Healthwatch Oxfordshire chief executive Rachel Coney: “Healthwatch remain very concerned about the situation in Oxfordshire not only because of the financial waste but because of the impact being stuck in hospital has on patients’ health and wellbeing.”

However, Mr Brennan said the trust was working with the county council, Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Oxford Health to improve transfers.

He added: “Any price is too high.

“Clearly we don’t want to be having that level of resources committed to maintaining patients in any environment that is not most conducive to their care.”

In January, Oxfordshire health services were handed £520,000 to deliver a “rapid” improvement on bedblocking, using it to speed up getting patients out of hospital.

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Nicola Blackwood said that despite identifying the issue as a top priority, the county was still “consistently” at the bottom of the league tables.

She added: “I have yet to hear a reasonable justification for this. Oxfordshire health services must do better.”

MP Andrew Smith pledged to hold meetings between health providers to address the issue.

He said: “This unacceptable level of delayed discharge remains a pressing and crucial challenge – not only for the trust, but for the county council which is responsible for the non-NHS support patients need in order to be able to go home or to community care.”

County council health overview and scrutiny committee chairwoman Yvonne Constance said there needed to be more integration between health and social care.

She added: “The ideal is to prevent going into hospital in the first place. Everything needs to change.”