Commenting on the Labour Party’s plan to use part of NHS budget to buy beds in care homes to help reduce overcrowding in hospitals, long waits in A&Es and patients waiting for extended periods in ambulances, Dr Tim Cooksley, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “Degrading and harmful corridor care in urgent and emergency services has received insufficient attention during the election period. Thousands of patients are being irreversibly harmed every month and this appalling new normal is a national emergency which needs urgent attention.
“It is pleasing that Wes Streeting is recognising this issue and considering solutions, though purchasing nursing home beds as a means for tackling delayed discharges is not a new idea and many areas have done this for several years.
“The focus should be on ensuring high quality community care beds with expert rehabilitation teams as that would be a valuable addition to the care for older people.
“Increasing capacity with the appropriate workforce is the only sensible and sustainable long-term plan. Achieving this is essential to provide patients and staff with light at the end of an increasingly gloomy tunnel for the NHS and social care.
“Buying extra nursing home beds will, in isolation, not stop corridor care or improve outcomes for older people. Moving older people around the care system to the wrong place is simply like moving the deckchairs on the Titanic: it doesn’t help them and won’t stop the overcrowding that leaves so many languishing in emergency care corridors.
“They, like all patients, deserve better than this. That requires investment, long-term plans and a vision for high quality care health and social care that has been lacking in the election debate so far.”