Delays increasing and discharge targets missed at Bedford Hospital
Key hospital discharge targets in Bedford are being missed and delays are increasing, despite a senior councillor saying that performance is “not too far off”.
The Bedford Borough Council and Bedfordshire, Luton, and Milton Keynes Health and Care Partnership Better Care Fund (BCF) enables the creation of a pooled budget for the delivery of improved health and social care services under three main themes:
- Improving out of hospital care
- Prevention (maintaining independence)
- Protecting social care
But the report presented to the council’s Health and Wellbeing Board (Wednesday, March 25) showed not all the targets were met during Quarter 3.
For example, only 56.7 per cent of patients were discharged from hospital on their discharge-ready date in the third quarter, against a target of 70 per cent.
Kate Walker, director of adults’ services, told the board: “Further work is needed on the number of days ready for discharge… [and] there’s other areas for work.”
The average delay for patients ready to leave hospital also rose to 6.2 days, above the target of six days.
Emergency admissions for people aged over 65 are also running above planned levels, adding further pressure to the system.
However, the report said performance targets are set nationally and, therefore, “will not always reflect the local context of the authority”.
Some areas did show improvement; admissions due to falls fell from 140 in the previous quarter to 102, while 90.7 per cent of people receiving reablement support were still at home 91 days after discharge, above the 80 per cent target.
The proportion of patients discharged to their usual place of residence reached 97.4 per cent, slightly below the national target.
Following Ms Walker’s presentation, the board chair, councillor Martin Towler, said: “It’s not a lot of very close alignment coming forward, maybe a little bit below.
“But we’re getting there, not too far off in some progress areas, so that’s good to see.”
The Health and Wellbeing Board noted the report.
Bedford Borough Council was asked what additional steps are being taken locally to improve hospital discharge performance ahead of the 2026/27 BCF planning round, and how it assesses whether this funding (£21.377m in 2025/26) is delivering value for money given that key system metrics remain off target.
It did not respond by the time of publication.