Improving hospital discharge

Once people no longer need hospital care, being at home or in a community setting (such as a care home) is the best place for them to continue recovery. However, unnecessary delays in being discharged from hospital are a problem that too many people experience.

The Hospital Discharge Service policy and operating model (August 2020) details the discharge requirements for all NHS trusts, community interest companies, private care providers of acute, community beds and community health services and social care staff in England. The guidance, based on successful discharge to assess principles, aims to ensure that all individuals are discharged from hospital in a safe, appropriate and timely way.

A set of role-based hospital discharge action cards are also available, which summarise responsibilities for key roles within the hospital discharge process.

COVID-19 emergency preparedness, resilience and response acute and community daily discharge situation reports

The COVID-19 emergency preparedness, resilience and response (EPRR) acute and community daily discharge situation reports (sitreps) collect data on the inpatient population of acute hospitals and community hospital bed providers as well as their discharge status each day using the Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS) portal. These guides outline how to complete the reports.

Acute discharge situation report: technical specification

This guidance supports completion of the Acute discharge situation report (originally the Covid-19 emergency preparedness, resilience and response [EPRR] acute daily discharge situation report [1]) and replaces the previous technical specification that was introduced on 27 May 2022.

[1] The Covid-19 EPRR acute daily discharge situation report commenced on 8 April 2020, to collect data on the inpatient population of each type 1 acute trust and their discharge status each day, by submitting a template through the Strategic Data Collection Service portal.

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