Moves to ease waiting times at a Middlesbrough hospital have been stepped up with the help of a 10-bed social care unit.
The £10m Gateway unit in Middlehaven was the UK’s first neuro and spinal-rehabilitation centre of its kind when it opened last year helping people with brain and spinal injuries.
Now 10 beds at the centre are being used to care for patients who are well enough to leave hospital but who are not able to be discharged so would otherwise take up valuable beds on busy wards.
The news comes after figures were released yesterday showing Teesside hospital trusts are repeatedly failing to meet A&E waiting time targets.
A report to Middlesbrough Council tonight, it revealed the authority is working with James Cook University Hospital and Keiro, which runs The Gateway, to tackle the problem of “bed-blocking”.
This is where patients are ready to be discharged but have nowhere suitable to go, leaving them stuck in the already full wards.
It has a knock-on effect of patients in A&E being unable to be moved, increasing the delays for those attending casualty.
Cllr Julia Rostron, executive member for adult social care and public heath, said the plans would “focus the use of acute beds on those who require them most” and were being funded by the government.
She added: “The beds at The Gateway will be used for individuals awaiting rehousing, adaptations to their homes or while relatives are choosing a care home etc.
“The criteria and processes have been drawn up tightly to ensure the resource does not itself become quickly “log-jammed”.
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