Peter Fox Chair of the RCN Association for the Care of Elderly People
ACE Chair Peter Fox looks at the vexed question of so-called ‘bedblocking’
Elderly people are major users of hospital services, with some 45per cent of acute hospital beds said to be occupied by those over 65 years. Maguire et al (1) surveyed 419 patients over 70 years of age in acute medical wards and found that 143 stayed longer than 14 days, with 65 of them staying in excess of 28 days. The factors which were claimed to affect length of stay were:
