Delayed hospital discharges cost NHS £2.7bn as thousands of beds remain blocked
New figures from The King’s Fund health thinktank show 13,000 delayed discharges each day across England, meaning almost 1 in 10 NHS beds are being taken up by people who are fit enough to leave hospital.
Unable to use beds that should have been freed up, under-pressure staff are often forced to turn to “unsafe and undignified” non-clinical settings, such as corridors, to treat patients.
The figures, which cover the financial year 2025/26, are modelled using the average daily cost of an NHS bed, which has risen to £562 - up £50 on three years earlier.
The government has previously said it is working to reduce delays through its £9 billion Better Care Fund, and by prioritising the discharge of patients who have waited over 21 days.
Danielle Jeffries, senior analyst at The King’s Fund, told that failing to move fit patients out of hospitals is having an “emotional, financial [and] safety” impact on both patients and the health service.
“We know that hospitals are already in crisis, but we found increasing evidence that delayed discharges and corridor care are having an increasing impact on hospitals,” Jeffries said.
“There’s always a risk of being in hospital that you get an infection, or your muscles will fatigue, or you’re not going about your day-to-day life, so you’re not able to get back to normal day-to-day routines.
“[NHS leaders] need to think more seriously about prevention, how they’re stopping some of this demand going in so we don’t get corridor care or delayed discharges in the first place… Thousands of patients every month are waiting in corridors, in unsafe, undignified areas within the hospital, because there just isn’t the capacity to take them in hospital beds.”
On top of the patient safety concerns, the sheer cost of delays will raise alarm among officials, with the Department of Health and Social Care reportedly having to find savings in its £14bn capital budget to help fund the Defence Investment Plan.
Delays in discharging, Jeffries explains, are often down to a lack of available social care and administrative problems in transferring patients to other settings.
The government has commissioned Baroness Casey to produce a report looking at the problems in social care, but is not due to report until 2028.
Social care reform is likely to be a key priority for Andy Burnham, should he, as expected, become prime minister later this month.
Burnham says there is an “urgent” need to fix the sector’s problems, and has signalled his desire for a government-commissioned review into the system to be brought forward by the end of the year.
Last year, the then health secretary, Wes Streeting, told Nick Ferrari that it was his ambition to eliminate corridor care by 2029.
However, official NHS figures published in May show 70,000 patients were treated in such environments, largely owing to pressures in A&E departments.
In 2025, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimated that 300 patient deaths a week are linked to long waiting times in A&E - a tenfold increase on a decade ago.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said:“The shocking delays to hospital discharge we inherited have cost patients and the NHS far too much, and instances of corridor care are never acceptable.
“But we are working to turn this around. Thanks to our record investment, millions more appointments have been delivered, and NHS productivity is rising.
“We are also joining up NHS and social care through Neighbourhood Health Teams, backing adult social care with over£4.6 billion additional funding and making sure more people can get the care they need out of hospital with the biggest investment in hospices in a generation.”
NHS England has been approached for comment.
Politics Editor
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