Top doctor ‘desperate’ to keep parents out of ‘lobster trap’ hospitals

’For someone who is frail, hospital is often a bad place for them,’ senior doctor says

More than 13,500 hospital beds per day were occupied by people ready to be discharged last month (AFP/Getty)

One of the country’s most senior doctors has said he is “desperate” to keep his elderly parents out of hospital, which he said are like “lobster traps”.

Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said hospitals are easy to get into but hard to get out of.

His comments come after figures showed the number of patients in hospital beds in England who no longer need to be there has reached a new monthly high.

An average of 13,613 beds per day were occupied by people ready to be discharged from hospital in October.

That was up from 13,305 in September and the highest monthly figure since comparable data began in December 2021, according to analysis by the PA news agency.

For someone who is frail, hospital is often a bad place for them

Dr Adrian Boyle

Numbers have been on an upwards trend since June when the average was 11,590.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Dr Boyle said: “Hospitals are like lobster traps – they’re easy to get into and hard to get out of.

“If social care was able to do its job in the way we want it to, these poor people wouldn’t be stranded in hospital.

“I have elderly parents and I’m desperate to keep them out of hospital.

“For someone who is frail, hospital is often a bad place for them. They’re being harmed by being in hospital.”

The seven-day rolling average for delayed discharges from beds peaked at 13,723 in the week to October 11, but had dropped slightly to 13,557 by the end of the month.

Overall, just 40 per cent of hospital patients were discharged when they were ready in October, NHS data shows.

This was unchanged from September but down from 41 per cent in July and 43 per cent in June.

There are sharp regional differences across the country, with an average of 49 per cent of patients in London discharged last month when they were ready, compared with 32% in the South West and 31 per cent in the North West.

The figure for south-east England and north-east England & Yorkshire was 41 per cent, with 43 per cent for eastern England and 44% for the Midlands.

Reporting by Press Association.