![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/hospitals-are-like-lobster-traps-warns-top-ae-medic-fearing-for-elderly-patients/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TELEMMGLPICT000229574210_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqSaMYQBNPlSYk661AIOFxtdPFEce1b9TiPLjPuAIum6s.jpeg&description=The country's most senior A&E medic has said he is "desperate" to keep his elderly parents from going into hospital this winter because he fears they will never come back out. Dr Adrian Boyle, the new president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told The Daily Mail that NHS hospitals "are like lobster traps … easy to get into but hard to get out of". He warned that the social care crisis meant that 13,000 patients had been left stranded in hospital despite being well enough to be discharged. Up to a third of hospital beds in parts of England are occupied by patients fit enough to be released, it was reported on Sunday night. As a result, wards are full of elderly patients who have no medical needs, but require help with basic needs like washing and cooking. Hospitals cannot discharge such patients without a care plan, with many short of staff to carry out such checks. This so-called bed-blocking is fuelling a record NHS backlog of more than seven million patients waiting to start treatment. Dr Boyle said things "could easily get worse" as hospitals are running at 94.3 per cent occupancy - the highest ever and still weeks ahead of the winter peak in sickness. Safety is at risk when occupancy surpasses 85 per cent, according to the British Medical Association. "Hospitals are like lobster traps – they're easy to get in to and hard to get out of," Dr Boyle told the Mail. "If social care was able to do its job in the way we want it to, these poor people wouldn't be stranded in hospital. "I have elderly parents and I'm desperate to keep them out of hospital. "For someone who is frail, hospital is often a bad place for them. They're being harmed by being in hospital." On Sunday night the Guardian reported that one in five beds was taken up by a 'blocker' at 35 of England's 121 acute hospital trusts. That number increased to almost one in three at two trusts – North Bristol and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh. Dr Boyle, who works as an emergency medicine consultant a){kind=link}
So-called bed-blocking is fuelling a record NHS backlog of more than seven million patients waiting to start treatment
The country’s most senior A&E medic has said he is “desperate” to keep his elderly parents from going into hospital this winter because he fears they will never come back out.
Dr Adrian Boyle, the new president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told The Daily Mail that NHS hospitals “are like lobster traps … easy to get into but hard to get out of”.
He warned that the social care crisis meant that 13,000 patients had been left stranded in hospital despite being well enough to be discharged.
Up to a third of hospital beds in parts of England are occupied by patients fit enough to be released, it was reported on Sunday night.