Delayed discharges costing NHS Scotland £440m a year

One out of every nine hospital beds in Scotland is occupied by someone well enough to go home, a damning new report has revealed.

The joint paper by Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission said systemic failures across health and social care meant that the country’s hospitals were losing more than 720,000 bed days a year to delayed discharges, at an estimated cost of over £440 million.

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Source: The Herald, 8 January 2026