The impact of delayed discharge—defined as ‘the period of continued hospital stay after a patient is deemed medically fit to leave hospital but is unable to do so for non-medical reasons’— is an important problem for health-care providers internationally. Costs to the National Health Service (NHS) in England associated with delayed discharge are approximately £100m per year.
Beyond the financial burden this places on a hard-pressed NHS and other services, there are real implications for inpatients’ health and safety as well as the stress levels of staff and different staff groups involved in the process.
Newly published CLAHRC research – summarised in our latest BITE – assesses the impact and experiences of delayed discharge at multiple levels, from the perspective of patients, health professionals and hospitals; and associated costs of delay.
Read the full paper
Rojas-García A, Turner S, Pizzo E, Hudson E, Thomas J, Raine R.
Impact and experiences of delayed discharge: A mixed-studies systematic review.
Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy. 2017. DOI: 10.1111/hex.12619
