DEMENTIA patients are deteriorating in hospital while waiting months for a nursing-home place, the Health’s managing director has revealed – warning that without more capacity, the Island’s new hospital risks becoming “the most expensive nursing home in the world”.
Andy Weir told the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel yesterday that patients who needed nursing care were now the biggest cause of delayed discharges from hospital.
“If you come into hospital with dementia and you need to go into a nursing home, you will probably wait about three months in hospital when you don’t need to be there,” he said.
“The consequence of that is that people deteriorate in hospital. It’s not a neutral thing just staying in hospital when you don’t need to be there. Actually, it causes people to become unwell.”
Mr Weir said work was under way to consider whether the government should provide more nursing-home places
“We only provide one nursing home at the moment, and everything else is done privately,” he said.
The government runs Sandybrook Nursing Home in St Peter, while all other nursing home provision in Jersey is private.
Mr Weir said delays in arranging care for people at home had eased, but finding nursing care had become a much greater problem.
Private homes could decide which residents to accept, he explained, leaving some patients waiting in hospital.
“I’ve said to the minister on numerous occasions if we don’t sort this out, we’re going to end up with the most expensive nursing home in the world up on the hill because it will just be full of people that don’t need to be in hospital,” he told the panel.
It comes after it emerged yesterday that almost £80m – more than 10% of the £710m approved budget for the project – has already been spent without a brick being laid.
Officials are examining what nursing-care provision Jersey will need in future, including whether the States should increase the number of places it provides.
The department is also working on more ways to support people outside hospital as part of its dementia strategy.
Mr Weir said Jersey had a limited range of supported accommodation, where residents could remain at home but still be able to access help.
Both the types of care on offer and the number of places needed to expand, he said.
“We have to make a shift from hospital care to out-of-hospital care,” he added.
