Summary
The NHS, with the cooperation of local authorities, plans to reduce unnecessarily long stays in hospital for patients by a quarter. The aim is to free-up over 4,000 beds in readiness for anticipated Winter pressures on hospitals. Currently, around 350,000 patients spend more than three weeks in a hospital per year, largely due to delayed discharges; accounting for one fifth of beds (equivalent to 36 hospitals).
“Many older people, particularly those who are frail and may have dementia, actually deteriorate while in hospital – a stay of more than 10 days leads to 10 years’ muscle ageing for people most at risk”.
Section headings in the main report comprise:
- How to approach improvement: a primer.
- 6As for managing emergency admissions.
- Ambulatory emergency care.
- Therapy at the front door.
- SAFER patient flow bundle.
- Expected date of discharge and clinical criteria for discharge.
- Red2Green days.
- Long-stay patient reviews.
- Multiagency discharge event (MADE).
- Health and social care multiagency peer review.
- Supplementary advice, links and resources.
Reference
Guide to reducing long hospital stays. London: NHS Improvement, June 2018.
See also, on the rationale:
Reference
NHS launches plan to improve patient care by cutting long hospital stays. [Online]: NHS England, June 13th 2018.
Nurse-Led and Criteria-Led Discharge (CLD)
Criteria-Led Discharge (CLD) in the acute medical unit at Tameside General Hospital resulted in higher weekend discharge rates:
Reference
Introducing criteria-led discharge in an acute medical unit. London: NHS England [and] NHS Improvement, January 17th 2020. Publication code: SL 39/20.
