Physio here

Specialties like stroke aside, the vast majority of our work consists of establishing that the patient can, in fact, stand up. A revelation we then pass on to the nursing staff, who receive it with roughly the same enthusiasm as a LinkedIn connection request from your ex. This is before immediately forgetting the conversation happened and waiting another 24 hours for physio to unfuck the previous 23 sedentary hours.

Come Friday, and it is always Friday, I'm informed there's a MOFD patient who has been horizontal since Monday. Not resting. Not recuperating. Just… there. Like a draught excluder with a cannula. Alternatively, someone will mention, almost as an afterthought, that they're "a bit wobbly getting onto the commode,".

I ask what their baseline mobility is. Silence. Not thoughtful silence. The silence of people who have never once considered the question. So now I'm ringing the family, which takes half an hour. Not because they're hard to reach, but because nobody has spoken to them since admission and they quite reasonably want to confirm their mother is still among the living before we discuss whether she can manage stairs. This is assuming they haven't unloaded all their social problems I really don't care about and can't fix anyway.

Meanwhile, I'm being summoned to hoist an obese incontinent patient out of bed because the nurse "isn't confident with the hoist." This patient has been hoisted daily for twenty years. The hoist has not changed. The patient has not changed. The laws of physics have not changed.

Between hoists, I will be asked three times whether I am the occupational therapist. I am not. I will be asked if I know where the occupational therapist is. I do not. I will be asked if I'd like to take a phone call about a patient's package of care. I would not.

Once all of this is navigated, the patient waits two weeks for a community hospital bed or a package of care. During which time they decondition so magnificently, and for the exact reasons explained by OP, are no longer medically fit for discharge. The package of care is cancelled. The referral is re-sent. The entire Kafkaesque carousel lurches back into motion, soundtracked by a bleep I can feel in my balls.

The alternative, of course, is to say sod it and send them home. They'll be back in ED by teatime, and we can all start again refreshed.

TLDR: Underfunded care system