Nearly a quarter of Northampton General Hospital capacity taken up by bed-blockers waiting to be discharged

NHS chiefs say Government plans to tackle bed-blocking do not go far enough as figures revealed nearly a quarter of Northampton General Hospital beds are occupied by patients who do not need to be there.

Latest NHS England data showed 214 people in NGH were medically cleared to leave hospital on August 31.

Those patients should be moved to a care home or offered home support but staff shortages in the sector meant only 45 of those were actually able to go.

That left 169 still occupying around 23 percent of the hospital's 742 beds, delaying new admissions and causing backlogs in ambulance handovers.

The proportion of 'bed-blockers' is among the highest in England and three times the 7.5 percent at Kettering General Hospital.

Health secretary Thérèse Coffey announced a £500 million adult social care fund designed to tackle the issue of 13,000 people in hospital nationally who should be receiving care in the community.

Yet chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents health organisations, Matthew Taylor, said: “We are now just weeks away from what will be one of the toughest winters the NHS has ever faced.

“Although it comes at the 11th hour, the Government has heeded our calls to reinstate central ‘discharge to assess’ funding this winter.

“However, NHS leaders need rapid clarification on how much of this £500 million fund is additional investment and how much is to be found from existing budgets."

West Northamptonshire Council has revealed its adult social care budget — which funds care for people leaving hospital — is already heading for a £7million overspend this financial year.

Mr Taylor added: “The Government has failed to address the urgent need to boost social care pay to help with recruitment and retention in a sector that has at least 165,000 vacancies, something which would alleviate huge NHS pressures.

“Failing adequately to address the lack of capacity in social care, combined with the complete and glaring absence of a workforce plan to address the staffing crisis in the NHS which now tops 132,000 means the risks of the NHS and care system being unable to meet even urgent demand this winter continues to be substantial.”

NGH has been contacted for comment, but has not responded.