The number of Stewartry people who were victims of delayed discharge from hospital rose by nearly 50 per cent last year.
And the number of bed days lost due to Stewartry patients not being able to leave almost doubled.
The figures are outlined in a report for this month’s meeting of the area committee.
Delayed discharge happens when medics deem patients fit to leave but they can’t, often because care at home packages aren’t in place.
The health and social care performance management report reveals that 179 Stewartry residents were victims of delayed discharge in 2022/23 – up from 122 the year before.
Region wide, the figure rose from 718 to 1,018.
And the number of bed days lost due to Stewartry residents being in hospital despite being fit enough to leave rose from 3,100 to 6,015.
The Dumfries and Galloway figure rose from 24,727 to 39,739.
Stephanie Mottram, interim manager for community health and social care, signed off the report and said that various improvements have been made or are being planned.
These include the establishment of a specific care and support at home division engaging directly with care at home providers, a “significant improvement” to the stability of the GP out-of-hours service, and the implementation of a community waiting times system after an initial test of change.
She said: “Our challenge at present is preparing for the forthcoming winter, where demands on all health and social care services are at their peak.
“Our teams in community waiting times, home teams, cottage hospitals and care and support at home are integral to our ability to manage capacity across health and social care over these difficult months.
“We are working with colleagues across health and social care on the delivery of new models of discharge planning; this has included successfully ensuring all cottage hospital in-patients have a planned date of discharge within 48 hours of admission.”
The report also reveals that 25 registered adult carers in the Stewartry have support plans in place, compared to 39 in 2021/22.
But the rate of people attending A&E dropped from 17.8 to 16.7 per 1,000 Stewartry residences, with the rate of people being admitted as an emergency falling from 10.1 to 9.9.
Both figures are below the Dumfries and Galloway rates.
