Health chiefs in the Highlands and islands have been urged to tackle bed blocking after statistics indicated they had the country’s highest rates of delayed discharge.
The plea was made after official NHS figures suggested NHS Western Isles and NHS Highland have the country’s highest proportion of patients languishing in hospital past the point when they are ready to leave.
The NHS Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland report into delayed discharge revealed an increase in bed-blocking across Scotland.
It found that there was a 6% rise in the number of bed days caused by the problem since last year, to 521,772.
When delayed discharge bed days were expressed as a percentage of all occupied beds, NHS Western Isles and NHS Highland were above the 2018/19 Scottish average of 8.5%.
Western Isles recorded the highest percentage, with 25.3% of 28,274 occupied beds.
In the Highland area, the problem accounted for the use of 15.5% of 294,373 occupied beds.
NHS Grampian was marginally below the Scottish average on 8% of 542,489 occupied beds.
Highlands Tory MSP Donald Cameron called for “caution” before “leaping to conclusions” about the data.
“There may be factors relating to geography, the age profile of patients, and the availability of care homes, which have influenced the results,” the MSP said.
“Nevertheless it is a cause for concern that people may be staying in hospital longer than necessary, and I will certainly be in contact with the relevant authorities to see if there is more that could be done to reduce the discharge times.”
A NHS Highland spokesman said: “NHS Highland is committed to reducing the number of people delayed in hospital and we will continue to work closely with patients, families, their carers and our partners.
“If a patient is delayed every effort is made to ensure that this is kept to a minimum.”
A NHS Western Isles spokeswoman said the health board had been investing in new services to support early discharge.
She said the board was seeking “imaginative solutions” to address recruitment challenges in social care and it was expected that delays would be reduced next year.
