A pledge by Scotland’s health secretary to ease bed blocking in Fife appears to have been missed.
The target of getting 60 patients home from hospital before Christmas was announced by Shona Robison in the Scottish Parliament after The Courier highlighted the ongoing crisis.
With NHS Fife hospitals under strain due to the high level of delayed discharges, urgent measures were sought to deal with the problem.
However, Andrew Rodger, Fife Council’s executive health spokesman and chairman of the health and social care partnership with NHS Fife, said it was unlikely the target would be met.
A £3 million joint action plan was put into place by NHS Fife and Fife Council to free up beds and Mr Rodger said the number of delayed discharge cases had fallen from 142 to 113.
He said: “The target is to get to just over 80 but because of how late this has all happened a more realistic figure would be just under 100.”
However, he stressed it was more important to ensure elderly people had the right care package before they were released from wards.
NHS Fife was unable to say whether it had accomplished the aim set out by Ms Robison but on Tuesday confirmed there were 103 patients in hospital awaiting alternative care.
A spokesman also pointed out that as patients left others joined the delayed discharged list.
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