DELAYED discharges at York Hospital are set to be tackled at every stage of the health care process in and around the city.

A meeting of the Health and Social Care Partnership Board - made up of representatives from City of York Council, Selby and York Primary Care Trust, York Health Services NHS Trust and the independent sector - met to discuss the problems involved with elderly people being kept on a hospital ward because they have nowhere suitable to go.

The meeting was told that there were currently 55 patients at the hospital awaiting discharge - costing the York trust money and seriously disrupting the running of the hospital.

Proposed solutions involve encouraging GPs to seek alternatives to hospital admission for their patients, expanding existing assessment procedures at the Accident and Emergency department, providing intermediate care for patients who are not well enough to go home but not ill enough to stay in hospital and increasing residential home capacity.

These measures aim to ensure that patients are not admitted to hospital unless really necessary, that they are able to stay at home if possible with adequate support provided, but that a residential home bed is available if necessary.

City of York Councillor Janet Looker, chairwoman of the Selby and York PCT, said that family doctors had to be involved in the process as well as people in the hospital and in social services.

She said: "None of us can work on this in isolation.

"If GPs feel that it's no skin off their nose what's happening at York Hospital, and if they don't care that the council pays £3.5 million in fines, and if they don't care too much about the issues we spend hours trying to resolve, they are going to take the easiest route.

"I think there's some work that needs to be done to get GPs to understand that this is one issue that's for every one of us."

Calls were also made to redirect the money generated when the council is fined for each delayed discharge - a system due to come into force on April 1 - to improving the situation.

Bill Hodson, the council's senior assistant director of community services, said: "Reimbursements are going to be made.

"My own strong wish is that money should be reinvested in things that will make this situation better."

Updated: 10:55 Saturday, January 18, 2003