Department of Medicine for the Elderly Inpatient Beds

Providing person centred care and support to older people in the Borders includes delivering it in appropriate settings that are best suited to them. In some cases this can be in hospital however more predominantly it is best for people to be at home or in their local community within care facilities.

There is currently an ongoing programme of work taking place within NHS Borders with involvement and engagement from health and social care colleagues looking at transforming the older person's pathway.

The national and local approach is to care for people as close to home as possible and avoid hospital admissions which requires a shift in the balance of care for medicine of the elderly.

There has been a real focus by the Health & Social Care Partnership over the past two years in developing services such as Hospital to Home and reviewing capacity in community based facilities including Garden View and Waverley Care Home to ensure that they are being appropriately utilised to enable the safe discharge of patients to an appropriate care setting.

These shifts in the balance of care mean that we can safely operate out of less acute beds in our DME inpatient wards. The change is part of shifting the balance of care to ensure that patients receive their care as close to home as possible. There will also be a requirement for reinvestment of a proportion of the savings in community based services to support older people in the community. Whilst this transformation work will release financial savings, that is not the main driver for the change.

Rob McCulloch-Graham, Chief Officer, Health & Social Care said: "The development of our Hospital to Home service and community based facilities are all designed to support people more in the community to promote independence as well as reducing length of stay in hospital which is ultimately what is best for patients.

"We have made the decision to initially reduce the overall DME inpatient bed base from 59 beds to 53 beds through the closure of one six bedded bay in DME Ward 14. This closure will take place within the next two weeks.

"As the older people's pathway transformation work continues there will be further reviews of our DME beds. This will involve the closure of a further six beds in October 2019. Ultimately, the aim of the older people's pathway transformation work is to half the number of acute DME inpatient beds as more patients will be receiving care in the most appropriate setting.

"Staff will continue to be involved and engaged in the change process. It is also important to note that NHS Borders operates a "no redundancy" policy and therefore staff affected will continue to be employed by us."