Bossesd at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, say they are working to improve discharge arrangements for frail or elderly Wiltshire patients who stay longer than patients from Bath and North East Somerset.

During an inspection visit in December the Care Quality Commission found there were twice as many patients from Wiltshire delayed for discharge compared with patients from Bath and North East Somerset, due to the two areas having different systems for accessing community and social services.

At a meeting of Wiltshire Council’s Health Select Committee on March 11 the RUH’s chief executive James Scott said the average Wiltshire patient stays in the RUH two days longer on average.

Mr Scott, who has been chief executive at the RUH for almost seven years, said: “This is not a simple problem. We are working hard on it and we have seen some improvement over the last few weeks.”