A massive £1 million is being wasted in Swansea's hospitals because of the high cost of people blocking beds, new figures have revealed.Health chiefs say the situation has got worse over the past couple of months because of problems finding care home places for elderly patients.
Figures show 85 patients were delayed from leaving the city's hospitals and a total of 43 cases were social care-related.
Bed-blocking is the scenario in which people are stuck in a hospital bed because there is nowhere else for them to go for care.
A total of 3,866 bed days was lost because of the problem, which set Swansea NHS Trust back around £1.1 million.
Finance bosses have revealed one lost bed day costs around £300.The high number of delayed transfers of care has also hit the number of routine operations being carried out.
Finance director David Roberts said the trust was counting the cost of the financial burden deriving from the number of delayed transfer of care cases.
He said: "A lost bed day costs around £300 per day. There were 3,866 lost bed days which cost around £1 million."Findings show the problem is Wales-wide. There are now 754 patients waiting to leave a Welsh hospital bed - a rise of 9.6 per cent in the last year.
Janet Williams, acting director of operations, at Swansea NHS Trust, said the situation around bed-blocking would be monitored.
She said: "Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in the past two months of delayed transfers of care. Delays in social care packages and administrative delays have caused the problems.
"Delayed transfers of care is worrying and something we are paying attention to.
"Patients who have different needs we would move to a community hospital if that is suitable for the patient."
