MORE patients are stranded in hospital beds despite a radical £2m project to tackle the bedblocking crisis getting under way last year.

Health leaders announced plans in November to move medically fit patients stuck in hospital beds with nowhere to go into specially-commissioned beds at nursing homes.

But it emerged on Thursday that despite 171 patients being transferred to these intermediate care beds over the past two months, there were now more delayed patients in hospitals than before the scheme started.

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On January 28 there were a total of 168 patients stranded in acute and community hospital beds across the county – up from 150 in November.

Once patients are moved out of the hospital they are assessed to determine if they can go home or need further care.

The committee heard that while the scheme had been successful transferring patients out of the hospital beds, the flow was held up because there was not enough to help them move on to the next stage of their care.

Board members at Oxford University Hospitals and Oxford Health foundation trusts are offering incentives to encourage more staff to help.

OUH clinical director Paul Brennan told the county council’s joint Health and Scrutiny Overview Committee on Thursday the goal of the pilot scheme was to reduce the number of delayed patients to 30.

He said: “We are not where we would want to be today, so we have agreed a series of additional measures to bring us back into line.

“The biggest single issue is being able to improve that flow through all the various services, so people are managed at home.”

Oxford Health, OUH, Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) and the county council drew up the scheme last year in response to the county’s high bedblocking rate.

The most recent comparable figures from NHS England, which takes a daily “snapshot” from trusts nationwide, showed in November Oxfordshire had the worst bedblocking rate in the country. The problem is estimated to cost £9m per year, Mr Brennan said because the scheme was only a pilot proposal, the trust could not force staff to move department.

That is why he told councillors that offering incentives will allow the trusts to rack up an extra 1,600 hours of manpower a week - the equivalent to 40 full-time staff.

Healthwatch Oxfordshire’s head of projects Carol Moore said it was disappointing the numbers were on the rise again.

She added: “We are disappointed it hasn’t shown faster progress. But until the scheme has finished we cannot really evaluate it.

“We are confident it may provide the lessons needed to solve the problem, but at the moment the numbers are not heartening.”

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith said it was “disappointing “ there were still more patients stuck in beds than when the scheme started but things would have been even worse without it.

He added: “It is essential that all those managing health and social services make it a high priority to remove the obstacles which are preventing patients being where they need to be with the right care and support.”

Jacqui Pearce-Gervis, chairwoman of county health watchdog Patient Voice, said the figures were not good news but the fact some patients had been moved on provided a “chink of light.”

She said: “I admire the initiative and there is obviously quite a long way to go.

“I am not sure if it is the right thing to solve the problem but they have to try different things so it is worth giving it a go.”

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Brennan said more staff were being redeployed to reablement and care in the community roles to solve the problem.

He added: “We hope this will provide the support needed to improve the flow of patients through the intermediate care beds commissioned in the nursing homes.

“It is disappointing that after a good start the numbers of patients delayed in our hospitals is rising again.”