'There’s an exit block': HUNDREDS of patients in Greater Manchester hospitals are well enough to go home but are stuck – amid 36-hour waits for a bed

Thousands of patients are staying in hospital for longer than necessary - as Greater Manchester hospitals struggle with ‘extreme overcrowding’ because of a scarcity of beds.

A total of 859 patients in Greater Manchester hospital beds were deemed well enough to go home on December 29. Only 189 were discharged though (22%), meaning that 78% of people deemed well enough to go home were left to take up hospital beds.

Over the last few years, the number of those patients has often topped 1,000 – around one-fifth of all the beds in Greater Manchester.

On Sunday December 29, a total of 16,313 patients across all NHS hospitals in England were deemed well enough to be discharged, according to latest figures published by the health service. Fewer than a third of those (5,135), however, were actually sent home.

That left 11,178 patients (68% of the total) in hospital beds unnecessarily.

At the end of December, the situation was worst at Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Salford Royal Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary, and the Royal Oldham Hospital, where none of the 154 patients deemed well enough to be sent home were discharged.

Just three of the 67 well patients (4%) were sent home from Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust hospital beds. At Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, running the Royal Bolton Hospital, the discharge rate of healthy patients was at just 18%.

At Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust it was 27% – the trust runs the most hospitals in the country, including all the hospitals in Manchester and Trafford.

And at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, it was 38%, and at Stockport NHS