Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the average length of hospital inpatient stays in the last three years.

The average length of hospital inpatient stays has reduced slightly from 5.0 days in 2014/15 to 4.9 days in 2016/17 despite the National Health Service dealing with increasingly complex medical conditions, particularly amongst frail and elderly patients.

In June 2018, the National Health Service announced plans to improve patient care by reducing long stays in hospitals. The NHS, working with local authorities, aims to reduce the number of long staying patients by around a quarter, freeing up more than 4,000 beds in time for next winter.