What’s driving increasing length of stay in hospitals since 2019?
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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.
Currently more than 50 per cent of women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer at an advanced stage when fewer treatment options are available. A specialist medical tampon could be used to help diagnose ovarian cancer earlier, researchers believe.
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