The Independent Care Group (ICG) has called for the reform of social care to end the painful rise in delayed hospital discharges.

The call for action came as data from the BBC’s Shared Data Unit revealed there are over 13,000 extra people unable to leave hospital every day due to a lack of access to care in the community.

ICG Chair Mike Padgham said: “The scandal of people being trapped in hospital beds is again laid bare today and it shames the country.

“We’ve been here before and these figures once again make very depressing reading.

“A huge reason for this is a lack of available care in the community due to the ongoing crisis in social care, which government after government have failed to tackle.

“There is a dreadful social impact of people being in hospital when they don’t need to be as well as a huge financial impact of people being in costly hospital beds when they should be cared for at home or in residential or nursing care.”

The ICG called for a switch of funding from the NHS to social care to end the delayed discharge “scandal”.

“We have to find a way to properly fund social care so that its staff can be properly rewarded and we can stop the tide of carers leaving the sector and tackle the severe staffing shortages,” Padgham said.

“Unless we do so, home care provision will continue to fall and care and nursing homes will continue to close. That shortage of care provision will continue to rise, fueling more and more delayed discharges.”

CSI Market Intelligence data shows the number of care beds fell by 1,300 in the first part of 2023 with the number of beds per 1,000 people aged 75 and over falling from 91 in 2015 to just 75. In addition, 247 homes closed during 2022 and just 123 new ones opened, giving a net loss of 124 homes.

The total number of care home beds fell from 488,518 at the beginning of January 2022 to 487,485  this year – a net loss of 1,033.

DHSC figures have revealed that 61% of local authorities were worried about a lack of domiciliary care. The Homecare Association has reported that vacancies in home care at 13%, contributing to difficulties in the sector to meet rising demand for care at home services. Over half (54%) of home care providers have reported they were delivering less care than in 2022.

Skills for Care has revealed 400,000 people left jobs in care last year with around 152,000 vacancies. The strategic workforce development and planning body said an extra 440,000 staff will be needed to keep up with care demand by 2035.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It is vital people receive the right care in the right place, and we are working to ensure patients are discharged safely from hospital, as soon as they are medically fit to do so. A record £1.6 billion investment is supporting this, on top of the £700 million to ease hospital pressures over last winter and the £42.6 million fund to support innovation in adult social care.

“To further bolster the workforce, we are continuing our Made With Care recruitment campaign – designed to reach millions of people – and the average pay for care workers has also increased. Staff retention is equally as important, which is why we are also investing almost £2 billion over two years to help councils support the workforce.”