£1.9m to send 21 Isle of Wight 'bed-blockers' to mainland

St Mary's Hospital did not have enough beds because of so-called "bed blocking"

A shortage of adult care places on the Isle of Wight led to the council spending £1.9m sending 21 patients to mainland care facilities.

St Mary's Hospital in Newport suffered a shortage of beds because patients who were ready to be discharged but needed continuing care had nowhere to go.

The placements, made between April and September, bypassed the bidding process usually followed for care contracts.

The council said it had no choice due to lack of care capacity on the island.

In the 21 cases Isle of Wight Council granted waivers to bypass the longer, more cost-effective bidding process, which would have allowed providers to compete for care contracts.

Speaking at the council's audit committee on Monday, councillor Chris Jarman described the use of waivers as a crisis and said care homes on the island were closing with too few new ones opening.

To ease the pressure, £222,000 has been spent to increase home care capacity on the island by employing carers from the mainland, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Adult social care councillor Karl Love said teams had been working hard to manage the pressure but were dealing with increasingly complicated cases, involving patients who needed greater levels of support.

In August, and again in September, Isle of Wight NHS Trust declared a critical incident.

It said it could only treat patients with life-threatening conditions and injuries at St Mary's due to high demand and "difficulties in discharging people into social care".