For over two decades before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were sustained reductions in the average length of patient stays in hospital.

This allowed the NHS in England to deliver more inpatient care while gradually reducing the number of hospital beds. However, as shown by our previous analysis, 2022 broke this trend. Compared with 2019, the average length of a hospital stay increased by 14% in 2022 (from 7.3 days to 8.3 days).

This was mostly driven by emergency admissions, which saw an increase in average length of stay from 7.9 days in 2019 to 9.1 days in 2022.

Read more here.