Labour to buy 300 care home beds to cut delayed discharge, says Baillie

Labour is vowing to tackle “undignified corridor care” with plans to buy hundreds of beds in care homes and create 1,000 new care at home packages.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said with patients currently “stranded” in hospital under the current system, it would act.

If Labour forms the next Scottish government she said they would “secure 300 step-down beds in care homes”, allowing some patients to be discharged from hospital.

In addition to this, she said to tackle the current “lack of social care packages” a Scottish Labour government at Holyrood would “create an additional 1,000 non-residential care packages”.

Speaking at the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow, Dame Jackie said: “Our measures will free up hospital beds, tackle undignified corridor care, bring down A&E waits and stop ambulances queuing at the front door.

“And it will give patients the social care support they deserve.”

Dame Jackie did not mention how much the policy would cost in her speech.

But it comes after figures from December 2024 showed there were 1,890 people in Scotland’s hospitals who were medically well enough to be discharged – with many of this group waiting for care arrangements to be made.

Labour, however, believes purchasing temporary care home places, and boosting the number of care at home packages that are available, could free up thousands of hospital beds.

This, is turn, could improve waiting times in hospital accident and emergency units, as more patients would be able to be admitted for treatment.

Announcing the policy, Dame Jackie told the conference of the case of one patient who was in hospital for six months after suffering two strokes.

But she said the woman was “stranded in hospital for another three months because there was no care package available”.

Health Secretary Neil Gray, however, said the Scottish Government already has a “clear plan” to reduce delayed discharge – which occurs when patients can not leave hospital because they are waiting for care arrangements to be made.

Gray said: “We know that too many patients are staying in hospital longer than is medically necessary and we have a clear plan to reduce delayed discharge.”

He added the Scottish Budget, which is due to be voted on in Holyrood on Tuesday, would include £200m “to help clear waiting list backlogs, improve capacity and remove blockages that keep some patients in hospital longer than they need to be”.

Gray said he hoped this would be “supported across the Parliament in the Budget vote next week”.