IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v24y2015is1p32-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing the Bed‐Blocking Hypothesis: Does Nursing and Care Home Supply Reduce Delayed Hospital Discharges?

Author

Listed:
  • James Gaughan
  • Hugh Gravelle
  • Luigi Siciliani

Abstract

Hospital bed‐blocking occurs when hospital patients are ready to be discharged to a nursing home, but no place is available, so that hospital care acts as a more costly substitute for long‐term care. We investigate the extent to which greater supply of nursing home beds or lower prices can reduce hospital bed‐blocking using a new Local Authority (LA) level administrative data from England on hospital delayed discharges in 2009–2013. The results suggest that delayed discharges respond to the availability of care home beds, but the effect is modest: an increase in care home beds by 10% (250 additional beds per LA) would reduce social care delayed discharges by about 6–9%. We also find strong evidence of spillover effects across LAs: more care home beds or fewer patients aged over 65 years in nearby LAs are associated with fewer delayed discharges. © 2015 The Authors. Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • James Gaughan & Hugh Gravelle & Luigi Siciliani, 2015. "Testing the Bed‐Blocking Hypothesis: Does Nursing and Care Home Supply Reduce Delayed Hospital Discharges?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(S1), pages 32-44, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:24:y:2015:i:s1:p:32-44
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3150
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3150
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.3150?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    2. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    3. Gabriel Picone & R. Mark Wilson & Shin‐Yi Chou, 2003. "Analysis of hospital length of stay and discharge destination using hazard functions with unmeasured heterogeneity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(12), pages 1021-1034, December.
    4. Forder, Julien & Allan, Stephen, 2014. "The impact of competition on quality and prices in the English care homes market," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 73-83.
    5. Martin, Stephen & Rice, Nigel & Jacobs, Rowena & Smith, Peter, 2007. "The market for elective surgery: Joint estimation of supply and demand," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 263-285, March.
    6. Hugh Gravelle & Peter Smith & Ana Xavier, 2003. "Performance signals in the public sector: the case of health care," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(1), pages 81-103, January.
    7. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    8. Holmås, Tor Helge & Kjerstad, Egil & Lurås, Hilde & Straume, Odd Rune, 2010. "Does monetary punishment crowd out pro-social motivation? A natural experiment on hospital length of stay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 261-267, August.
    9. Laurie Brown & Annie Abello & Linc Thurecht, 2011. "Length of Hospital Stay by Older Australians: Bed-blocking or Not?," NATSEM Working Paper Series 11/08, University of Canberra, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling.
    10. Jose-Luis Fernandez & J. Forder, 2008. "Consequences of local variations in social care on the performance of the acute health care sector," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(12), pages 1503-1518.
    11. Julien Forder, 2009. "Long‐term care and hospital utilisation by older people: an analysis of substitution rates," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(11), pages 1322-1338, November.
    12. Lindsay, Cotton M & Feigenbaum, Bernard, 1984. "Rationing by Waiting Lists," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 404-417, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huan Liu, 2021. "Formal and Informal Care: Complementary or Substitutes in Care for Elderly People? Empirical Evidence From China," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, May.
    2. Brendan Walsh & Seán Lyons & Samantha Smith & Maev‐Ann Wren & James Eighan & Edgar Morgenroth, 2020. "Does formal home care reduce inpatient length of stay?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(12), pages 1620-1636, December.
    3. Jim G. Dai & Pengyi Shi, 2021. "Recent Modeling and Analytical Advances in Hospital Inpatient Flow Management," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(6), pages 1838-1862, June.
    4. DeVolder, Russell & Serra-Sastre, Victoria & Zamora, Bernarda, 2020. "Examining the variation across acute trusts in patient delayed discharge," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(11), pages 1226-1232.
    5. Moura, Ana, 2021. "Essays in health economics," Other publications TiSEM c93abd22-fa4a-42a5-b172-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Moura, Ana, 2022. "Do subsidized nursing homes and home care teams reduce hospital bed-blocking? Evidence from Portugal," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. Serrano-Alarcón, Manuel & Hernández-Pizarro, Helena & López-Casasnovas, Guillem & Nicodemo, Catia, 2022. "Effects of long-term care benefits on healthcare utilization in Catalonia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Crawford, Rowena & Stoye, George & Zaranko, Ben, 2021. "Long-term care spending and hospital use among the older population in England," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Lu, Bei & Mi, Hong & Yan, Gaoyun & Lim, Jonathan K.H. & Feng, Guanggang, 2020. "Substitutional effect of long-term care to hospital inpatient care?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Feng, Jin & Wang, Zhen & Yu, Yangyang, 2020. "Does long-term care insurance reduce hospital utilization and medical expenditures? Evidence from China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    11. Guangbo Ma & Kun Xu, 2022. "Value-Based Health Care: Long-Term Care Insurance for Out-of-Pocket Medical Expenses and Self-Rated Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Xueqin Deng & Jiaxin Liao & Rong Peng & Jiahao Chen, 2022. "The Impact of Long-Term Care Insurance on Medical Utilization and Expenditures: Evidence from Jingmen, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-18, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James Gaughan & Hugh Gravelle & Luigi Siciliani, 2014. "Testing the bed-blocking hypothesis: does higher supply of nursing and care homes reduce delayed hospital discharges?," Working Papers 102cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    2. James Gaughan & Hugh Gravelle & Rita Santos & Luigi Siciliani, 2017. "Long-term care provision, hospital bed blocking, and discharge destination for hip fracture and stroke patients," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 311-331, September.
    3. DeVolder, Russell & Serra-Sastre, Victoria & Zamora, Bernarda, 2020. "Examining the variation across acute trusts in patient delayed discharge," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(11), pages 1226-1232.
    4. Kere, Eric Nazindigouba & Choumert, Johanna & Combes Motel, Pascale & Combes, Jean Louis & Santoni, Olivier & Schwartz, Sonia, 2017. "Addressing Contextual and Location Biases in the Assessment of Protected Areas Effectiveness on Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazônia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 148-158.
    5. Hugh Gravelle & Luigi Siciliani, 2009. "Third degree waiting time discrimination: optimal allocation of a public sector healthcare treatment under rationing by waiting," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(8), pages 977-986, August.
    6. Brekke, Kurt R. & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2008. "Competition and waiting times in hospital markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1607-1628, July.
    7. Christina Boll & Andreas Lagemann, 2018. "Does Culture Trump Money? Employment and Childcare Use of Migrant and Non-Migrant Mothers of Pre-School Children in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1015, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    8. James Gaughan & Hugh Gravelle & Rita Santos & Luigi Siciliani, 2013. "Long term care provision, hospital length of stay and discharge destination for hip fracture and stroke patients," Working Papers 086cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    9. Briones Alonso, Elena & Houssa, Romain & Verpoorten, Marijke, 2016. "Voodoo versus fishing committees: The role of traditional and contemporary institutions in fisheries management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 61-70.
    10. Megha Swami & Hugh Gravelle & Anthony Scott & Jenny Williams, 2018. "Hours worked by general practitioners and waiting times for primary care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(10), pages 1513-1532, October.
    11. Markku Maula & Wouter Stam, 2020. "Enhancing Rigor in Quantitative Entrepreneurship Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(6), pages 1059-1090, November.
    12. Anders Skrondal & Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, 2022. "The Role of Conditional Likelihoods in Latent Variable Modeling," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 87(3), pages 799-834, September.
    13. Jeremy Edwards, 2021. "Can Institutional Transplants Work? A Reassessment of the Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Prussia," CESifo Working Paper Series 9333, CESifo.
    14. Fabrizio Iacone & Steve Martin & Luigi Siciliani & Peter C. Smith, 2012. "Modelling the dynamics of a public health care system: evidence from time-series data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(23), pages 2955-2968, August.
    15. Alzuabi, Raslan & Brown, Sarah & Taylor, Karl, 2022. "Charitable behaviour and political affiliation: Evidence for the UK," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    16. Huw Dixon & Luigi Siciliani, 2009. "Waiting Time Targets in Healthcare Markets: How Long Are We Waiting?," Discussion Papers 09/05, Department of Economics, University of York.
    17. Francesco Longo & Karl Claxton & Stephen Martin & James Lomas, 2023. "More long‐term care for better healthcare and vice versa: investigating the mortality effects of interactions between these public sectors," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 189-216, June.
    18. Smale, Melinda & Mathenge, Mary K. & Opiyo, Joseph, 2015. "Nonfarm Work and Fertilizer Use Among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya: A Cross-Crop Comparison," Working Papers 206441, Egerton University, Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development.
    19. Gravelle, Hugh & Siciliani, Luigi, 2008. "Ramsey waits: Allocating public health service resources when there is rationing by waiting," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1143-1154, September.
    20. Dixon, Huw & Siciliani, Luigi, 2009. "Waiting-time targets in the healthcare sector: How long are we waiting?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1081-1098, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:24:y:2015:i:s1:p:32-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.