Timely discharge from hospital is an important indicator of quality. It is a marker that care is person-centred, effective, integrated and harm-free.

A delayed discharge occurs when a hospital patient who is clinically ready for discharge from inpatient hospital care continues to occupy a hospital bed beyond the date they are ready for discharge.

Revision to hospital classification

The National Advisory Group for Delayed Discharge Information (NAGODDI) agreed on 31 January 2025 that five hospitals should be reclassified from acute to Community GP/non-GP led locations and this should be backdated to July 2016. This planned change doesn’t impact the total number of people delayed at census, it has low impact on the numbers reported by location type. See the Revisions relevant to this publication section in the Metadata section for further details.

Our monthly update

This release provides a monthly update on the:

• number of people experiencing a delay in discharge from hospital at the monthly census point – the last Thursday of the month
• number of hospital bed days associated with delayed discharges in the calendar month
• number of discharges from hospital that followed a period of delay in the calendar month

The data relate to people aged 18 years and over who were clinically ready for discharge.

Next release

The next release of this publication will be 1 April 2025.