What was the total cost of delayed hospital discharges to NHS Wales in the last financial year?
We do not currently hold a defined estimate of the total costs of delayed hospital discharges. While NHS bed-day costs are occasionally cited as a possible estimated cost of discharge delays, these estimates vary considerably and include a wide range of direct and indirect costs, making them unsuitable for providing a robust estimate of the total cost of discharge delays.
Additionally, these estimates would likely be fully absorbed, including an element of all overhead and indirect costs relevant to Inpatient services, as well as direct costs from the cost of senior staff down to consumables and direct staffing. This could be via services that support patient assessment and transitional arrangements such as residential assessment and reablement discharge beds or ‘hotel’ services. As such, these could be an indicator of resource use, but a poorer indicator of total costs or any potential cost savings.
Regardless of the precise cost, addressing delayed hospital discharges through our ambitious National Care Service programme to strengthen the social care sector is a key priority for this Government, and we will be setting out further details of this work in the autumn.