Scottish Conservative leader, Russell Findlay MSP led the party’s health team in announcing the party’s plans to tackle delayed discharge from hospital in Scotland.
A delayed discharge refers to someone who is clinically ready to go home from a hospital stay, but cannot be released until a care package is put in place usually by a local authority. That person continues to receive inpatient hospital care occupying a bed beyond the date that they really need it.
Introducing the proposal, Mr Findlay said this is the seventh paper which the party has launched in recent weeks and months.
Mr Findlay said it is a “radical and bold solution to an absolute crisis”.
Dr Sandesh Gulhane, MSP, the party’s health spokesperson fleshed out the details of the scheme which will offer a fast track to care to adults in hospital. There is also a proposal to change the law so that adults with incapacity – who make up around a quarter of the number of delayed discharges – can be transferred to care homes without waiting for all the necessary paperwork. (At present a person with incapacity might require a guardianship order for example, to allow consent to be given to a move.)
The pilot scheme would enable those patients ready to move out of hospital to have a place in a local care home while local authorities organise a care package to get them home. It would only be possible to run the scheme in areas where local authorities have places in their care homes, but the Conservatives hope to procure 600 care beds by delivering funding to Health and Social Care Partnerships.
Change to benefit patients
This is billed as a change which will benefit patients most as some lose their independence while staying for too long in hospital until a local authority gets care put in place.
Dr Sandesh Gulhane, who is a GP, said he sees pressure “at the front door” and as an MSP he sees a system wide consequence.
He outlined the numbers – 2,000 people were delayed in hospital in October 2025 – and said that “after years of SNP promises the problem is not improving – it’s actually worsening”. He also said that the party would establish a national network of step-down beds “using the very model that can be demonstrated at Glencairn”.
And Dr Gulhane said: “We would also publish real time delayed discharge data something that does not happen now, so people understand what life is really like in the hospitals that they have to go to.” Finally he claimed that the new plan “will free up acute beds, reduce cancellations and provide patients with dignity and continuity of care.”
Mr Findlay later told The Edinburgh Reporter that the Conservative scheme would save money. He said: “Something like 2,000 patients are trapped in hospitals every single day in Scotland, at a cost of over £300 pounds per person per night. So on a daily basis, you’re looking at £600,000 pounds being wasted on poor souls being trapped in hospital.”
Robert Kilgour
Mr Kilgour has assisted the party with their new proposal and he confirmed that his nursing homes which are located in several cities in Scotland, have dementia units in each region. This means that his company, and others like it, could help the government provide the 600 beds required for a pilot. He said: “If it was to work, it would definitely be better for the patients, their families, their relatives. It would be better for the NHS because it would allow more beds to be used, more operations to be carried out, and for waiting lists to be reduced, which is what we all want to see.
“And lastly, it would be good for the taxpayer, because actually it’s financially better to keep people either at home or in the care home than taking up a hospital bed.”
NHS SCOTLAND NUMBERS
NHS Scotland records these numbers on a monthly basis. The figures for October 2025 were reported last week and the average time that someone is delayed is 29 days – one day more than the previous three months.
In October 2025, there were 61,410 days spent in hospital by people whose discharge was delayed. Some of the delays were caused by health and social care reasons, and some for personal or family reasons.
NHSScotland said: “At the October 2025 census, there were 1,962 people delayed. Compared to the previous three census points, this is more than the number of people in September 2025 (1,953), August 2025 (1,953) and July 2025 (1,948).
“The number of people delayed varies across the Local Authorities. Chart 4 in the All delay reasons workbook shows the variation in the rate of delays per 100,000 population, across the local authorities, at the October 2025 census.”
He was joined by the party’s shadow health team including Dr Sandesh Gulhane, MSP and Brian Whittle, MSP, and the founder and chairman of Renaissance Care, Robert Kilgour, who has worked alongside the party to produce the new policy paper.
