Improving acute social care

Increasing social workers (or equivalent) in both hospital and community as well as looking at how to expand care at both at home and residential facilities. 

I am a Geriatrician working on a Rehabilitation ward. 

The Guardian has recently run a piece on 'bed block' due to the lack of resources in the social care space (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/13/hospital-beds-england-occupied-patients-fit-discharge). Whilst I do not believe we are there yet, it does feel like we are headed this way. 

Following COVID it has become increasingly difficult to access either carers to support discharge home or residential care beds to discharge patients to. It also contributes to family stress and carer burden. In our District it is even more complex due to limited options for patients under 65. I would support any workforce intervention to provide more timely access to these services. I have heard of centralised pools of carers to assist in the providing this service