HOSPITAL bosses have said they keep a close eye on patient readmissions, amid concerns from senior doctors nationally about pressure to speed patients out of hospital.

In Swindon, Great Western Hospital and the borough council have been praised for its work to tackle bed blocking.

Regular meetings between the NHS and council and a focus on caring for patients at their own homes or at care homes has seen a reduction in delayed transfers of care, the name given to patients otherwise healthy enough to be discharged but unable to leave hospital because there is no care home place or their family are not able to care for them at home.

However, NHS figures suggest Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust had the highest rate of emergency readmissions in the country last year. Of 15,818 patients discharged on a Wednesday, 6.3 per cent had been readmitted to hospital within seven days.

And speaking to the Health Service Journal, the new president of the British Geriatrics Society has warned of the dangers of constantly reducing the time people spend in hospital.

Prof Tahir Masud, a consultant at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “It’s very important to get length of stay down, but there has to be a nadir under which we don’t go, otherwise it will lead to more harm.

“Managers have to understand that length of stay cannot keep going down year by year without there being adverse consequences at some point.

“We need to be efficient, but not at the cost of quality.”

Concerns that patients are not being discharged from GWH only to reappear in A&E within a matter of days have previously been raised at the Swindon hospital’s monthly board of directors' meetings.

Kevin McNamara, director of strategy at GWH, said: “Ensuring patients are discharged from hospital in a timely way is important, as spending longer than necessary in hospital can impact on muscle mass and independence, particularly for older patients. It is also important for other patients too, as it helps free up beds.

“At the same time, we also keep a close eye on the numbers of readmissions as there is potential that if a patient is discharged too early, there is an increased risk of readmission, so as a trust, we look at both things to get the right balance."

“We have been working on a number of initiatives to improve patient flow and discharge processes across the trust and we’ve made some good progress in reducing delayed discharges working closely with Swindon Borough Council.

“We’re now considered one of the best performing areas in the south west.”

Nationally, research by Healthwatch England showed the number of patients readmitted to A&E within 24 hours of being discharged has risen by 30.5 per cent in five years, from 82,674 in 2013/14 to 107,960 last year.

Sir Robert Francis, Healthwatch England’s chairman, said: “We know that the way care is delivered is changing, which may mean the increases as a whole aren’t inherently bad. But for those subjected to an unplanned and unnecessary return trip to hospital it can be a deeply distressing experience.”