Figures released by Public Health Scotland on Tuesday show delayed discharge continues to be a concern in Dumfries and Galloway.

When comparing August 2022 with August 2023, the figures in Dumfries and Galloway rose by seven per cent and are a massive 70 per cent higher than pre-pandemic (August 2019).

Delayed discharge is when a patient is medically cleared to go home but cannot leave hospital, often because a social care package is not in place or there is a lack of places in care homes or sheltered housing.

Across the region thousands of hours of assessed care is not being provided in homes because of a lack of carers.

Colin Smyth said: “Every month these figures are released and almost every month they paint a bleak picture for our region.

“Before the pandemic, the Scottish Government had vowed to eradicate delayed discharge but instead of improvements, we are seeing numbers spiralling out of control, piling pressure on our hospitals and threatening patients’ recovery.

“Our social care system is crying out for help – our amazing local NHS ais working as hard as they can to get people out of hospital, but they can’t work miracles.

“Patients and workers across our health and social care system are being failed and we urgently need to support social care services.

“We need long term investment, including tackling the woeful low level of sheltered housing locally, but the Government could start by backing Labour’s plans to pay care workers a fair wage of £12 an hour, rising to £15 which would help with the recruitment crisis.”