Scottish Government approve extra £5M for intermediate care

Scots Health Secretary, Alex Neil, has announced an additional £5 million to help health boards to improve the flow of patients through the health and social care services.

The funding boost will aid further development of intermediate care, helping people to stay in their own home instead of going into hospital in the first place, and services that support people to regain their independence so they can return home sooner after a hospital stay.

By improving the way that patients move through hospital and are supported at home, the investment will allow people to be moved from A&E to an appropriate ward sooner and reduce the amount of unnecessary time that patients spend in hospital.

The funding will be carefully targeted to improve performance in seven health boards, working with their local authority, housing and Third sector partners.

Alex Neil said: “Our NHS and its partners is making sustainable progress around exploring new and innovative ways to improve the way that patients move through our health and care services.

“We’ve already legislated for health and social care integration to come into effect from April next year, but I am clear that we must make further progress now.

“That’s why I’m targeting £5 million today to support the transition to integrated health and social care and improve patient flow through a number of hospitals and community services.

“This investment will help improve the journey of many patients through hospital and back home supported by appropriate care services so they can leave hospital as soon as they are able.

“Improving flow through hospitals not only benefits the individual patient, but also helps improve the performance in frontline services like A&E and planned operations.”

During a visit to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Edinburgh, Mr Neil heard how NHS Lothian and their local authority partners plan to use the investments to develop a hospital-to-home model and enhance intermediate care and reablement services.

Melanie Johnson, Director of Unscheduled Care, NHS Lothian said: “We welcome this additional funding to improve care by reducing delays in discharge from our hospitals.

“It will complement our ongoing programmes of work with our Health and Social Care partners, to prevent admission, speed up discharge, and create more capacity through additional home care and nursing home places.

“The funding will support the implementation of new teams which will act as a bridge between hospitals and social care, providing support at home more quickly than we can currently achieve. It will also help us establish plans for new approaches to discharge, rehabilitation and social care assessment.”

The funding will be available to Lothian, Grampian, Fife, Lanarkshire, Highland, Forth Valley and Greater Glasgow & Clyde board areas.