Growing numbers of patients are experiencing delayed discharges due to a lack of social and community care provision.
This reduces the number of beds available for those who need to be admitted, leading to bottlenecks in A&E and patients languishing in the back of ambulances.
NHS data showed an average of 13,600 people remained on wards despite being ready to leave every day last month.
Analysis by CHS Healthcare estimates that will rise to 14,178 by late December as hundreds more are affected.
The predicted figure would be a 54 per cent increase on the 9,200 patients who needlessly remained in hospital last Christmas.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said social care was in desperate need of reform and financial support.
She said: “We can’t fix the serious knock-on effects caused by delayed discharges from hospital without addressing the long-standing challenges facing the social care sector, which is inextricably linked with the NHS.
“Without addressing serious problems in social care, particularly around workforce shortages, we cannot ease mounting pressure right across the health and care system.
“Hospitals are struggling to discharge thousands of patients who are well enough to recover at or closer to home, which in turn badly affects timely hospital admissions including from A&E and the handover of patients from waiting ambulances.”
A record 44,000 people were kept waiting for over 12 hours in England’s emergency departments last month.
Heart attack and stroke victims waited more than an hour on average for an ambulance against an 18 minute target.
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Frustrated paramedics have told how they are sometimes only able to attend one emergency per shift after becoming trapped in long queues outside departments.
Sally Warren, director of policy at The King’s Fund, said there were problems with both social care and NHS community services.
She explained: “There are people in hospital waiting for social care packages…but there might also be aspects of NHS community support that they need which is not in place, such as district nursing.”
Tim Gardner, senior policy fellow at the Health Foundation, said the NHS “works hand in glove with social care” and delays have a knock-on impact across the system.
He added: “Addressing these gaps in social care and community health services is needed to break this vicious cycle.
“But the NHS and the social care sector are both facing significant workforce shortages – with vacancies standing at around 130,000 in the NHS and 165,000 in social care.
“A comprehensive, fully funded workforce strategy for recruiting and retaining NHS and social care staff is long overdue.
“In particular, we need to improve the working conditions for care workers – over a quarter of whom were living in, or on the brink of, poverty before the cost of living crisis.”
CHS Healthcare partners with the NHS and social care systems to deliver patient flow solutions.
Managing director Matt Currall said: “We need to act quickly to address the known root causes of delayed hospital discharge.”
Source: Daily Express
