The number of older people requiring adult social care who are delayed when leaving hospital has more than halved in the last four months, following the introduction of a raft of new measures.

Last year Dudley Council was awarded £13.9million from the government’s Improved Better Care Fund to spend over three years to tackle some of the most pressing issues in health and adult social care.

In this first year, the council committed to spending £7million introducing a package of measures to support older people to leave hospital as soon as they are medically fit to do so, reducing cases of delayed transfer of care and ultimately improving people’s experiences.

Measures included an emergency response team, which offers support to people who have gone to the hospital’s accident and emergency department in need of urgent social care support. It helps them to return home and prevent unnecessary admission into hospital. 

There’s a new community response team, which supports the ambulance service when responding to emergency calls by offering crisis support to help people stay in their own home.

These measures along with other incentives, such as new technologies, increased levels of care at home and recruiting more social workers to prevent inappropriate admissions to hospital, have had a significant impact within a short period of time.

Between August and November last year the number of adult social care delayed transfers of care reduced from 437 to 182, a drop of 58 per cent. Councillor Nicolas Barlow, cabinet member for adult social care, said:

“We all know from media reports and, for many of us, from personal or a family member’s experience that the nation’s health and adult social care services are under immense pressure.

“At a local level it’s no different for us here in Dudley and last year we welcomed the government’s investment to help us tackle the issues on our doorstep. 

“While we recognise there is some way to go, these recent figures show that our bespoke package of measures, which we have introduced, has started to address some of those key issues.

“We strive to build on this progress and hope the services can only improve further from this point onwards.”