Many fit people are not being discharged because of a lack of adult home care or community health provision
The number of patients stuck in hospital in England despite being medically fit to leave nearly doubled between February and November this year. The rise is worrying health experts, who say it is more evidence that the crisis in the adult care system is creating backlogs in the NHS.
NHS England data shows that the number of times hospital trusts were unable to discharge a patient who no longer met the criteria to stay in hospital increased from 223,593 in February to 402,211 in November – a rise of almost 80%.
