According to NHS England, an expansion of same-day emergency care services has enabled more people to get rapid tests and treatment and avoid an overnight stay in hospital.
New data has revealed that there has been an 11 per cent increase in the number of people who were admitted to hospital as an emergency who then completed their care and were discharged on the same day.
In the past 12 months, there were 206,446 more patients discharged on the same day having received the care that they needed, rather than having to stay overnight in hospital. This is up from 1,817,683 in the year to January 2023 to 2,024,129 in the year to January 2024.
The NHS has met the Urgent and emergency recovery plan ambition to roll out same day emergency care to every hospital in England, and therefore help to free up beds and keep people out of hospital by as much as 30 per cent in some NHS Trusts.
The units run 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and help staff to assess, diagnose and treat hundreds of thousands of patients a year, as well as supporting patients to go home after receiving the care that they need.
North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust opened same day emergency care (SDEC) services in their West Cumberland Hospital in 2020 and the unit has helped to reduce the number of people who need to be admitted to that hospital by 30 per cent.
Sarah-Jane Marsh, national director of urgent and emergency care, said: “The expansion of same day emergency care services across the country is ensuring patients with a wide variety of conditions can access timely diagnosis, care and treatment, without admitting them to an inpatient bed – supporting better outcomes, experience and waiting times.
“By continuing to deliver on our urgent and emergency care recovery plan, despite the pressures of another challenging winter and the impact of industrial action, a further fall in ambulance response times, as well as the number of patients waiting for treatment is a testament to the continued hard work and dedication of NHS teams, who go above and beyond every day to deliver improvements for patients within the available resources.”
