Guide to reducing long hospital stays
This guide offers practical steps and tactics to support the NHS and partners to use an optimal approach to managing hospital length of stay.
Nearly 350,000 patients currently spend over three weeks in acute hospitals each year. Many are older people with reduced functional ability (frailty) or cognitive impairment. The benefits of reducing hospital bed occupancy are clear, but achieving it has proven difficult, particularly during winter.
Our guide goes beyond principles and suggests more concrete tactics to reduce unnecessarily long stays in hospital for patients.
Focus on reducing long hospital stays – case studies
NHS trusts have created a series of case studies supporting the national ambition to reduce long hospital stays. Teams have found these case studies particularly helpful to aid their improvement approach and to use at conferences, team meetings and during training sessions. Please feel free to share these case studies with colleagues across your own areas and among your wider networks.
Share your improvement stories and resources with colleagues across the NHS by submitting them to our Improvement Hub.
Focus on reducing long hospital stays – videos
Long stay Wednesday
Liz Sargeant – Emergency Care Intensive Support Team (ECIST) Clinical Lead Health and Social Care Integration – describes how the #LongStayWednesday approach can reduce length of stay for patients and improve outcomes at the 'Thinking differently to improve flow: understanding risk and what matters to the patient' conference in Manchester.
Home first – supporting patient choice
A patient story about improving emergency patient flow, implementing a 'home first' mindet and principles. One of a series of videos to support the 'Good practice guide: Focus on improving patient flow' produced by ECIST with the support of Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.
Embracing risk; enabling choice to support patients to return #homefirst
A patient story about improving emergency patient flow using balanced risk assessments considering patients' choice. One of a series of videos to support the 'Good practice guide: Focus on improving patient flow' produced by ECIST with the support of Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.
Frailty – Supporting improving patient flow
One of a series of videos to support the 'Good practice guide: Focus on improving patient flow' produced by ECIST, with the support of North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. This video focuses on improving patient flow for older people with frailty.
Focus on reducing long hospital stays — webinars
Related content
- Improving patient flow through urgent and emergency care
- Embracing risk; enabling choice — Guidance for occupational therapists
- Quick guide: Discharge to Assess
- Quick guide: supporting patient choices
- Rapid Improvement guides: urgent and emergency care
- Good practice guide: Focus on improving patient flow
- Case studies: Focus on improving patient flow
- The value of patient time: Last 1,000 days
- SAFER patient flow bundle and Red2Green days approach
- Red2Green campaign
- SAFER patient flow bundle: board rounds
- SAFER patient flow bundle: ward rounds
- Reviewing ‘stranded’ patients in hospital – what are patients waiting for?
- Criteria-led discharge
- Our #endPJparalysis journey
- Tips for getting patients up and moving
Find out more
For the latest improvements related to the Good practice guide: Focus on improving patient flow, you can follow ECIST on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
You can also follow these hashtags on Twitter for highlights of the latest achievements across the country: