Unblocking beds: a geriatric unit's experience with transferred patients

A study was made of all patients admitted to a geriatric unit over several years. The admission policy included a high degree of priority to requests for transfer from acute beds, which resulted in transferred patients accounting for 25% of admissions. Unblocking acute beds did not lead to prolonged delay in admitting patients from the community to the geriatric unit. Almost 30% of beds allocated to transferred patients were recovered in 30 days.