fife Council’s leader of the opposition has repeated his call for the local authority to make good its offer of £250,000 to help tackle the bed blocking crisis within the region’s hospitals.
Labour group leader Alex Rowley was speaking after a joint statement was released by council leader Peter Grant and NHS Fife chairman Professor Jim McGoldrick on Friday which reaffirmed their commitment to work in partnership to solve the challenges facing both organisations.
Despite a row over funding in recent weeks, both leaders said they were “in it together” and were determined to tackle the problem of getting people out of hospital and into a community setting as soon as possible.
However, Mr Rowley said yesterday that the statement “amounts to empty words that will do nothing to alleviate the current crisis” and again called on the council to spend the £250,000 it offered from council balances regardless of how much NHS Fife can afford.
He said, “While pensioners remain trapped in hospital making their situation worse, people who need medical treatment are unable to get access to a bed and the leadership of both organisations choose to put out meaningless statements telling us how united they are.
“What is it they are united in? Failing to meet the needs of pensioners, their families and patients? Put simply, it is not good enough and not acceptable.
“We need a statement from both organisations setting out clearly and without ambiguity who is responsible for what and we need the Scottish Government to accept its responsibility for health and social care provision and work with both organisations to find a solution…
“Anything less is to fail the people of Fife and I am not going to stand by and watch that happen.”Council responsible for finding moneyMr Rowley continued, “As I see it, Fife Council is responsible for finding the money to place people in either the community or a care home when NHS Fife assess that the person has no medical need or requirement to remain in hospital.
“Indeed at that point, the worst option of all for the individual is to be kept in hospital. If Fife Council cannot meet the demand for this service then the first thing they should do is say so publicly to the people of Fife and then to the Scottish Government who are ultimately responsible for Scotland’s health and social care provision.
“Then we can begin to look for a way forward that will find real solutions.”
A £224,000 package was agreed by both organisations before Christmas, which has helped the discharge of 38 people since December 30, over and above normal activity.
This came after the council initially offered to put a maximum of £250,000 towards the problem, although that was only provided if NHS Fife could match it which it could not.
Meanwhile, Independent councillor Andrew Rodger said he was also concerned the statement was “nothing more than spin.”
“I told Mr McGoldrick back in June if they continued to cut beds they would hit a problem in the winter with the elderly, but he chose to listen to his senior management team who knew that patients were being boarded from ward to ward long before we had a delayed discharg problem and if you check the figures for June there was no one waiting over six weeks,” he said.
“Social work is not having it easy as budgets are tightened, but they spent an extra £2 million plus last year on extra places for the elderly but NHS Fife seem to have forgotten what their partner has done to address last year’s problem-it goes both ways when you are partners.”
Mr Rodger reiterated his belief “games are being played” to cover up weak practices within management at NHS Fife and reckons the organisation is “top heavy” with managers.
“We need to go back to matrons in charge with a hospital administrator at her side,” he added. “Why? Because we had more nurses on the wards, better hygiene and nurses sitting with patients giving comfort to them.”
Photo used under a Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user dreamingofariz.