'Discharge patients to save cash'

12 April 2012

The NHS could save almost £1 billion a year and free 13,000 beds in England alone if action was taken to stop patients staying in hospital too long, according to a new report.

Around 60 beds in an average acute hospital are taken up by patients who could have returned home, said the report from the left-of-centre thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Getting patients out of hospital quicker would allow some of the extra bed space to be used to cut waiting lists, while other beds could be closed and the money saved be put towards improving healthcare elsewhere in the system.

And shortening stays would reduce the risk of patients picking up hospital superbugs like MRSA, as well as allowing them to recuperate at home among their families.

The report, entitled The Future Hospital: The Progressive Case for Change, highlighted statistics suggesting that delays in patient discharges are often due to administrative shortcomings rather than medical reasons.

Patients admitted on a Thursday stay in hospital a day longer on average than those who come in on a Sunday, because relatively fewer people are discharged at the weekend.

And average stays are longer the more beds there are available in the area's hospitals.

IPPR associate director Richard Brooks - who co-authored the report with Joe Farrington-Douglas - said: "It may sound counter-intuitive, but a better NHS will be one with fewer hospital beds overall.

"If local communities oppose every hospital change we won't get the health service we deserve. Not every hospital bed closure is a bad thing.

"Hospitals should change for health reasons, not because of short-term cost-cutting. This means some specialist services being provided in fewer places, continued reductions in the average length of hospital stay and more care taking place outside hospitals."

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