HEALTH bosses say there is an urgent need for closer links with social services after it was found that hold-ups in discharging patients are causing a delay in treating new cases.

The comments came after members of South Buckinghamshire NHS Trust board heard last Wednesday that the consultant of Wycombe Hospital's accident and emergency department, David Potts, had met with trust officials and voiced his fears about the effect delays were having on his department.

Health officials feel that when patients have been treated it is still difficult to free-up the beds because of a delay in getting patients to intermediate care beds in community hospitals or finding a way of treating them at home.

Chairman of the trust, Bryan Long, said: "It is clearly in a state of considerable concern and he (Mr Potts) is anxious about the implications for the state of his department."

Chief executive of the trust, Roy Darby, said: "There is a limit to how much more physical capacity we could bring on stream. We need to ask how can we work better with other organisations, how we can definitely use our capacity. We have to come back to the old theme of delayed discharges."

He said: "We have got to find a way of working with the health authority and social services to resolve that. That has got to be one of our major challenges for the coming year."

South Bucks Community Health Council led a casualty watch at Wycombe Hospital on March 19.

Ailsa Harrison, spokeswoman for the CHC, said: "What we believe is that when there are problems with a lot of patients in A & E it is because there is a log-jam somewhere else. It is a much bigger picture."

David Griffiths, deputy chief executive, told the meeting that at Wycombe and Amersham hospitals there were 50 patients a week suffering delayed discharges in September and October. It peaked at 60 per week in February. Last week it was down to 40 cases.

Sarah Jones Beer, spokesman for Buckinghamshire Health Authority, said: "The Heath Authority has been working hard with South Bucks NHS Trust, Buckinghamshire Social Services and PCGs over the winter period to try to reduce the numbers of patients awaiting discharge from the hospital.

"It is hoped that the hard work and the joint initiatives which worked well during winter will continue."

Wendy Price, spokesman for High Wycombe and District Social Services, said: "Our social services are working with the health authority to try and relive the situation in the hospital."