BBC Information
BBC“I really feel very indignant, upset, nugatory, and like my psychological well being and my life doesn’t matter,” says Jessie, propped up in a hospital mattress.
She is recording this in a video diary. Blue NHS curtains are drawn across the mattress and all her possessions are stacked up within the tiny chaotic house this creates.
Among the many piles of containers and baggage sit the dolls she holds to maintain her calm.
Thirty-five-year-old Jessie spent 550 days in Northampton Basic Hospital. For almost all that point, she was medically match to go away however discovering her an acceptable place to go to was tough.
The BBC has adopted her story for greater than 5 months because the NHS belief took pricey Excessive Courtroom motion towards her, to have her evicted from the hospital mattress she was occupying.
Jessie was finally arrested and brought to a care dwelling the place she says she feels anxious.
Her story is an excessive instance, nevertheless it demonstrates the acute pressures confronted by a care system dealing with extra advanced instances, the knock-on impact to the NHS, and the way the individual on the coronary heart of it might probably really feel misplaced.
North Northamptonshire Council, which is chargeable for her housing and care, says it can’t remark due to an ongoing police investigation into Jessie’s behaviour.
The hospital says it “is just not the perfect atmosphere for sufferers who should not in want of acute medical care”.
The Division of Well being and Social Care has advised the BBC: “This can be a troubling case which reveals how our damaged NHS discharge system is failing susceptible individuals.”
Jessie was certainly one of greater than 70 individuals who contacted the BBC after studying about Matthew in Surrey – who would find yourself spending greater than a 12 months caught on a hospital ward earlier than being moved to a care dwelling.
Most who wrote to us advised of their struggles to search out the social care they wanted, some additionally confronted lengthy waits to get out of hospital.
Firstly of January 2025, almost 13,000 out of the greater than 100,000 hospital beds in England had been occupied by individuals who did not have a medical motive to be there, in keeping with official figures.
For individuals delayed for greater than every week, the most typical causes had been an absence of social care out there in their very own properties, or a scarcity of locations in care or rehabilitation properties.
Such delays have turn out to be regular, say specialists.
Jessie’s story
It is rather uncommon for a affected person to be taken to court docket by the NHS – Jessie’s is just the fourth case since 2006. So how did she come to be arrested in her hospital mattress?
She arrived at Northampton Basic on 14 April 2023 needing therapy for cellulitis, a bacterial an infection affecting the pores and skin, which might be critical.
She makes use of a wheelchair and desires assist with all her private care. She has additionally been identified with an emotionally unstable character dysfunction.
Jessie likes video games, arts and crafts, and journeys to backyard centres. She additionally finds life tough and might be difficult to these attempting to assist her. When careworn, she self-harms and might threaten to hurt others.
By the tip of April, she was able to be discharged from hospital, however was advised she couldn’t return to the nursing dwelling the place she had lived for 9 years as a result of it may now not meet her wants.
Jessie – who’s unable to work and reliant on advantages – grew to become more and more remoted caught inside her hospital cubicle on the six-bedded ward. She says her psychological well being deteriorated additional, individuals would stare at her and she or he felt safer with the curtains drawn.
From paperwork we’ve seen, and from what Jessie and her mom, Hilda, have advised us, it was a couple of 12 months earlier than she was provided an alternate place by the native council.
Sarah Scobie, deputy director of analysis on the Nuffield Belief assume tank, says sufferers caught in hospital for 3 weeks or extra, like Jessie, have a tendency to wish plenty of help, and the variety of these instances is growing.
With councils – who pay for many social care – financially squeezed and overstretched, many care properties and home-care suppliers are solely given short-term funding, she says.
It’s “tough for them to ascertain providers, recruit employees, prepare employees, spend money on a service, if they do not know whether or not that funding goes to proceed,” she provides.
The federal government says it’s offering an extra £26bn to assist “shift the main target of care from hospital to group, and deal with delayed discharges by bettering the hyperlinks between the NHS and social care”.
It additionally says a overview of grownup social care led by Baroness Louise Casey, which begins work in April, will draw up a plan for a good and reasonably priced care system for the long run.
In Jessie’s case, authorized paperwork say the council investigated almost 120 care locations. Just one was provided to her.
This was a supported residing flat in a close-by city, with two care employees initially current 24 hours a day.
However the city has upsetting reminiscences for Jessie. She finds it too tough to speak about, aside from to say “unhealthy issues” occurred.
She advised us she was determined to go away hospital, however the considered going there made her really feel suicidal. So, she refused the one place provided.
Beneath the 2014 Care Act, Jessie ought to have the ability to specific a choice about the place she lives.
She has psychological capability, however was assessed by the NHS as needing knowledgeable advocate to help her on this, serving to her perceive the selections she is requested to make and to clarify her views to others.
Jessie was referred to an advocacy agency by the council, however in June 2024 her case was closed after she requested for a brand new advocate however then did not reply to additional contact.
The well being and care system is “convoluted, difficult, very bureaucratic” and it’s simple for a affected person’s voice to get misplaced, says Caroline Entwistle from the advocacy charity, VoiceAbility.
She believes an advocate can “take that strain off the one who’s feeling fairly overwhelmed” – however that funding for such providers is just not maintaining with demand.
The hospital did present Jessie with psychological well being help whereas she was in her cubicle. However she believed no-one was listening to her.
“I defined all the explanations I wasn’t proud of [the accommodation],” she says, “however they only went forward with it anyway.”
In August 2024, 16 months after she arrived, the hospital began authorized motion towards Jessie to repossess the mattress she was in.
She didn’t actually perceive what was occurring, she says. Neither did her mom. They may not discover a solicitor and had no advocate, so the primary two hearings went forward with out anybody representing Jessie’s views.
The NHS belief argued a affected person did not have the best to decide on their placement, and {that a} hospital mattress took up important useful resource.
It stated it had taken account of Jessie’s vulnerabilities all through and the bundle of care provided by the council was important, with employees current 24 hours a day to maintain her secure.
A care plan, which detailed the help Jessie wanted, was solely given to the court docket on the remaining listening to. The date suggests the evaluation was accomplished the day earlier than. It additionally notes that “Jessie is unable to speak successfully”.
On the remaining Excessive Courtroom listening to on 4 October, Jessie attended remotely from hospital. Inside minutes she was overwhelmed and needed to go away. Her mom struggled to talk for her.
The choose stated Jessie may problem the council’s evaluation of whether or not the lodging and care had been proper for her, however she couldn’t stay in hospital “when she doesn’t want a mattress there, and has not wanted one for over a 12 months, and others do”.
He dominated that Jessie should go away hospital, and stated “we should hope the transition goes easily”.
The hospital belief says it’s dedicated to working with “care companions to supply the very best look after these in our communities” within the place that “most accurately fits their wants”.
The newest information, from 2020-21, suggests a normal NHS hospital mattress prices £345 per day. Adjusting for inflation, this may imply Jessie’s hospital keep is prone to have value greater than £200,000. We have no idea how a lot the authorized motion value.
Ten days after Jessie’s remaining listening to, 18 months after she arrived in hospital, the police arrested her. She spent a number of hours at a police station earlier than being moved to the flat within the city that holds unhealthy reminiscences.
Police are investigating her for quite a few alleged incidents, she advised us, together with for sending offensive emails shortly earlier than she was evicted in October.
Since shifting, Jessie says she has self-harmed and the police have been referred to as on three events – as soon as by Jessie, twice by employees.
“They do not know what to do with me,” she says.
Jessie has just lately been visited by a brand new advocate.