THERE has been an increase in 'bed blocking' at local hospitals due to delays in arranging care, a new report says.

Bury health scrutiny committee regularly monitors bed blocking — or delayed discharge — figures, which look at how many hospital beds are taken up unnecessarily.

A report published on Monday shows that, in October, there were 639 occasions in October when patients from Bury were medically fit to leave hospital but had to stay there for reasons beyond their control.

The report authors are Bury Council's assistant director Linda Jackson and Joanne Moore, the divisional director for medicine at Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust, which runs Fairfield General and North Manchester General hospitals.

It says: "This is the fourth highest in Greater Manchester and a 66.4-per-cent increase when compared to October 2014, and a 3.4-per-cent increase from September 2015.

"Delayed days are increasing month on month, whereas (before) it was fairly static."

The report says 222 bed days were lost because Bury residents were waiting for care staff to set up care packages for when they return home and 197 bed days were lost as patients were waiting to receive other care elsewhere within the NHS.

While the figures from October are the latest ones available, problems experienced by A&E departments at Fairfield and North Manchester in January suggest there is still an issue with bed blocking.

Last month, health bosses asked people not to turn up to A&E at those hospitals unless they absolutely needed treatment and people witnessed ambulances queuing to access Fairfield, with longer-than-usual waits for patients.

The report looks at ways of solving the problem.

It says: "A range of schemes (are in place) to increase (bed) capacity, speed up discharge processes and reduce non-election admissions, as well as seeking to improve performance in the 'awaiting care packages in own home' category.

"Most of these schemes became operational between September and November and include additional medical staffing, additional social work capacity and additional packages of care.

Pennine Acute has also implemented a number of changes, including introducing training for ward staff on discharge processes and recruiting more staff.

The introduction of seven-day working in the social work service at Fairfield began on January 17 and would help the discharge of patients at weekends, the report says.