A WEEK after a care home raised concerns about the way residents are placed in nursing care, the county council has admitted it has made ‘changes’ to the system.

In a statement, Liz Fairhurst, Hampshire County Council’s executive member for adult health and social care said: “We've recently changed the way we secure residential or nursing accommodation for people coming out of hospital, to free up the crucial role of our social care teams in supporting those people most in need.”

She said HCC supports the discharge of some 8,000 people every year from Hampshire hospitals. The new way of working, she said: “Ensures a thorough process is undertaken by a specialist team who match the needs of our clients to the right residential or nursing homes across the county.

“Using this approach, the majority of clients have been found accommodation quickly, but we recognise there have been some cases where there have been delays, which is regrettable. We are working hard to address this so that everyone leaving hospital who requires residential or nursing care, receives it promptly.”

She also added that a number of factors were taken into account when choosing residential or nursing settings. “These include our clients’ personal preferences, the cost of the care, especially where people fund it themselves, and any alternative community based support that may be available.”

However, she did not elaborate on when or why the changes had been made, or who had made them.

The statement was prompted by a Daily Echo report in which a Barton-on-Sea care home branded an alleged change to the way beds were found as ‘a shambles’.

Manager of the White Rock Nursing Home, Karen Harrison, said she believed the way patients are discharged had changed, potentially jeopardising her home because of dropping numbers.

“It is a complete shambles and no one seems to know what is going on,” she claimed. “Local hospitals are jam packed with patients waiting to be discharged to homes like ours, but they can’t move the patients because no one is looking for beds for them. In the meantime, despite being able to offer much needed bed spaces we stand empty.”

She said smaller homes like hers, which is rated Good by the Care Quality Commission: “Just don’t have the huge financial buffers the giants amongst us have and we can’t afford to keep going if no one is communicating with us.”

The West Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group said the way its NHS team sources care for people who receive NHS Continuing Healthcare had not changed.

However, the Echo has spoken to representatives from two, smaller independent care homes in the Bournemouth area, which also believe their drop in occupancy is down to apparent changes in the way care is ‘brokered’.

One home owner, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s almost as if they want people to only go to the bigger organisations.”