NEARLY 6,000 ‘bed days’ at Halton and Warrington Hospitals have been lost and 150 operations cancelled last year due to delays in discharging patients.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that 5,722 beds were blocked at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s three sites by patients fit for home but nowhere to go.

This resulted in 156 operations being cancelled at the two hospitals and the Cheshire and Merseyside NHS Treatment Centre.

One patient was stuck in hospital for 80 days and a further 211 patients were trapped in wards waiting for suitable accommodation.

Bed-blocking costs the NHS around £900 million a year.

A spokesman for Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “Delayed transfers of care happen when someone who has been acutely unwell has recovered enough to no longer require care within an acute trust and have ongoing care needs which need to be met to enable a safe discharge.

“There are various reasons these are not available at the time of discharge and as a result require an extended hospital stay.”

A short term assessment and rehabilitation ward to support patients medically fit for discharge closed last month due to funding cuts.

The hospital’s spokesman added: “The trust hosted a multi-agency discharge event which involved all partners from health and social care in Warrington and Halton.

“Patients deemed community fit but had excessive lengths of stay were involved and had a holistic assessment from all those that could be involved in the next stage of their care.

“This provided significant additional support to the patient’s journey on to a more appropriate care setting.

“There was fantastic collaboration by all agencies around the patient journey leading to a greater understand of how we can work more coherently with many improvements identified.

“Several meetings have taken place since to follow up the actions and we continue to work daily with all our health and social care partners to resolve issues to accommodate the transfer of community fit patients.”