Delays with patients being discharged from hospitals in Wales is affecting the delivery of safe care, a new report has warned.

The report by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales’ (HIW) ‘National Review of Patient Flow’, published on Thursday, 7 September says that “patients are not always receiving the care they need in a timely and appropriate manner” as a result of inefficient patient flow through the healthcare system.

HIW said: “The review used stroke patients as a case study to understand the risks and challenges that poor patient flow can have on the healthcare system, and specifically the impact on the quality and safety of services.

“The review has highlighted that across Wales, there are significant challenges which are having a negative impact on the efficiency of patient flow, meaning patients are not always receiving the care they need in a timely and appropriate manner.”

The review findings reveal “consistent challenges caused by poor patient flow throughout Wales”, “hindering the timely and appropriate delivery of care.”

“These challenges are wide ranging,” the report finds, “but primarily stem from the high demand for beds combined with the complexities involved in discharging medically fit patients from hospitals.”

“Unnecessarily long stays in hospital due to delayed discharge can place patients at risk of hospital acquired infections or deterioration whilst awaiting discharge,” the report adds.

“The bottleneck at the point of discharge has a knock-on impact on emergency departments, ambulance response times, inpatient care, planned admissions and overall staff wellbeing.”

Plaid Cymru spokesperson for health and care, Mabon ap Gwynfor MS said: “Welsh Government must heed the lessons from this extremely important report by HIW, and ensure further patients don’t suffer needlessly as a result of delays to movement through the health and care systems.

“The issue of slow patient flow through hospitals due to a lack of community care is not a new one. Indeed, when I was elected two years ago, I raised it then.

“Delays to patient flow through hospitals is complex issue, but there are fundamental issues at play: Wales has seen thousands of hospital beds closed over the last two decades.

“Each time we’ve been told that care is better delivered closer to home and whilst that is undoubtedly true, the Labour Government has singularly failed to properly invest in that community care.

“As a consequence of the lack of investment into that care ‘closer to home’, we are overly dependent on an army of voluntary carers. In turn, many of these carers are woefully under supported.”

HIW said it has made recommendations which include the need for health and social care services to work together more effectively, to tackle these issues and improve the patient journey.