Up to 120 new step-down beds to ease aged care and NDIS pressure on SA hospitals

The Malinauskas Government is expanding its extraordinary measures to try to manage the aged care and NDIS blockage, releasing tenders for two new step-down healthcare services, accommodating up to 120 long stay patients.

New data has revealed the scale of the national aged care crisis where 59 patients have each spent more than 100 days stuck in metropolitan hospital beds, despite being medically cleared for discharge – a total of 10,925 days. A further 50 patients have each been waiting between 50 and 100 days.

Examples of patients stuck in metropolitan hospitals, waiting for an aged care placement or other community support include:

• a female in her 70s who has spent 1,052 days in hospital, referred to more than 60 residential aged care homes with no placement offers to date.
• a male in his 70s who has spent 357 days in hospital, referred to more than
  30 residential aged care homes with no placement offers to date.
• a female in her 70s who has spent 215 days in hospital, referred to more than
  20 residential aged care homes with no placement offers to date.
• a male in his 60s who has spent 207 days in hospital and referred to more than 50 residential aged care homes with no placement offers to date.

For the first time, data shows how extensive the national aged care crisis is, with
377 patients in total under SA Health care but stuck waiting for federal aged care:

• 262 in public hospital beds waiting for aged care.
• 60 in Care Awaiting Placement beds waiting for aged care.
• 41 in private beds waiting for aged care (including the Pullman).
• 14 in mental health beds waiting for aged care.

Last month the nation’s health ministers exposed the national aged care crisis with almost 2,500 patients across the country stuck in public hospitals awaiting Federal Government aged care beds.

After a decade of underinvestment in aged care by the Federal Government, the South Australian Government has taken the extraordinary step of releasing tenders for new ‘step-down’ services, including:

• up to 70 beds in the CBD or surrounding suburbs for patients stuck in the Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth hospitals.
• up to 50 beds in the northern suburbs for patients stuck in the Lyell McEwin and Modbury hospitals.

Tender processes are underway, to select locations and providers for these new services, which accommodate patients who no longer require acute care, helping to free up vital hospital beds for urgent and emergency cases.

This initiative builds on the success of the Transition Care Service at the Pullman Hotel, operated by Amplar Health, which the State Government has recently doubled the capacity to 48 beds. Since opening in February, the service has saved 5,685 hospital bed days by taking patients from metropolitan hospitals who are stuck waiting for aged care placement or other community supports.

The announcement comes as the latest ambulance ramping figures improved last month to 4,557 hours, a 23 per cent decrease compared to 5,866 hours in July and the best performance in four months.

Response times also improved in September, with ambulances reaching 77.7 per cent of Priority 1 cases in the target timeframe of 8 minutes, compared to only 47.1 per cent in January 2022.

Ambulances reached 60.5 per cent of Priority 2 cases in the target 16-minute timeframe in September, compared to only 36.2 per cent in January 2022.

This comes at a time of strong demand, with emergency presentations 8 per cent higher than the same time last year, meaning our emergency departments saw 2,662 more patients presenting.

Despite the pressure, hospitals have increased the number of elective surgery operations performed, with 1,661 more operations performed compared to the same time last year.

Full ramping data – including a hospital-by-hospital breakdown – can be found here.

Quotes

Attributable to Chris Picton

It is completely unacceptable that South Australians are stuck in hospital beds for years, not because of medical need, but simply because there is nowhere else for them to go.

This is one of the key factors driving the bed block across our health system. Too many South Australians remain in hospital long after their treatment is complete, through no fault of their own.

That’s why we are taking every step possible to try and deal with this issue. Rather than waiting for the Federal Government to take action – we are releasing new tenders for up to 120 more beds, on top of the 48 beds we currently have in the Pullman Hotel.

While we are building hundreds of more public hospital beds, we cannot allow them to be stuck with hundreds of people who don’t need to be in them. It’s not a good outcome for those people, or the patients who need them.

Attributable to Central Adelaide Local Health Network CEO Dr Emma McCahon

We want to ensure all patients receive the right care, in the right setting.

Finding a partner to continue caring for our transition patients will enable us to provide access to urgent care at our major hospitals, in a timely manner, for as many people who need it.

Attributable to Northern Adelaide Local Health Network CEO Karen Puvogel

Across NALHN as we experience some capacity constraints – as seen throughout the health system – we have seen an increase in long-stay and maintenance care patients in our hospitals.

With the Invitation to Supply soon to be issued, this is the first step in helping support care-awaiting patients with an appropriate setting for them to receive their care, outside of a hospital.