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Flooding at a Government-run nursing home left five beds out of action for nearly a year at a time when more than 30 people are unable leave hospital due to a shortage of community beds, it has emerged – with the additional pressure costing Health £400,000 in lost income.
The five beds at the 24-hour care facility in St Peter are now finally expected to re-open this month.
Sandybrook is a Government-run nursing home which, at maximum capacity, has 24 bedrooms.
The majority of rooms are for permanent residents over the age of 65, but there are four rooms for over 18s staying temporarily.
In 2014, £1.25million was set aside to upgrade Sandybrook, which hadn't been refurbished since it started providing residential care for older people since 1999.
But in 2018 it emerged that the home was denied these crucial improvements because the States underestimated the cost by over £1million.
A 2022 review of the Government-run facility by the Jersey Care Commission highlighted "poor levels of compliance" with regulations and a failure to make improvements.
The flooding is one of the most recent challenges faced by Sandybrook.
A report presented at the most recent meeting of the Health Advisory Board – a group of experts brought in to drive improvements in Jersey's Health Department – revealed that the five bed closures at the nursing home resulted in a loss of £400,000 in Long Term Care Benefit income for the Health Department.
The meeting minutes stated: “There have been bed closures at Sandybrook since October following a flood which required refurbishment.
“These beds will be opening in the next two weeks, providing additional nursing home capacity.”
The minutes also revealed that, at the time of writing, 31 people were in hospital – despite being fit to be discharged – due to a shortage of nursing-home beds, specialist care, and care packages in the community.
Pictured: At the end of last month, the hospital had 31 patients who no longer needed to be there but couldn't leave due to a lack of care availability in the community.
Of those 31 people, 16 were waiting for a nursing home bed, six were waiting for specialist dementia provision in the community, and three were waiting for a package of care.
The remaining people were either waiting for home adaptations, waiting for residential care, or waiting through choice until their preferred placement becomes available.
The minutes noted that "across the island there is increased reported reduction of nursing home capacity, particularly due to temporary closures and this is a contributory factor to the overall position".
In response to this, a draft Discharge Policy has been developed to address the issue of individuals choosing not to leave the hospital.
Joint work between the Health Department and the Customer and Local Services Department to look at the whole system – including commissioning and paying for community services – has almost concluded.
However, the work to accelerate community care has resulted in a significant overspend of more than £3m on social care placements and packages of care.
The minutes also highlight that "progress has not been made in creating additional specialist dementia care capacity, particularly those with additional complex needs".
The document continued: "These individuals are those waiting the longest.
"Currently work at Rosewood House (St Saviours) which will provide some additional capacity, but this will not be completed until March 2025."
The Chair of the Jersey Care Federation, Cheryl Kenealy, previously warned that the island could find itself in an "increasingly difficult position" due to the lack of local care staff.
She told Express last month that there had been "no movement" on the issue of bed blocking.
Ms Kenealy highlighted the limited pool of available staff to recruit from in the island, explaining: "It's getting harder and harder to bring people over."
Pictured: Jersey Care Federation Chair Cheryl Kenealy explained that there was a limited pool of care staff to recruit in the island.
This is not the first time that the issue of bed blocking has been raised as a concern in Jersey.
In 2022, the government confirmed that a lack of available care packages meant patients requiring domiciliary, nursing or residential care were having to stay on wards "for a longer time than is medically required".
The report presented at the most recent Health Advisory Board meeting also revealed that a further £500,000 of Health Department income was lost due to the correction of a historical invoicing issue, dating back to 2021.
The report explained: "There is a forecast underachievement of £0.9m for Long Term Care Benefit income across Mental Health and Intermediate Care, partly due to bed closures at Sandybrook [which cost] £0.4m, and the remainder due to correction of historical invoicing back to 2021, which has now been reconciled with CLS."
It emerged that, in the past, the Health Department had billed the Long Term Care Fund for patients who were not eligible for funding.
A process of regular reconciliations is now in place where Health and Customer and Local Services work together to agree which individuals will receive payments from the Long Term Care Fund.
This forms part of a £24.2m deficit forecast for the Health Department by the end of the year.
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