Government pledges to investigate overnight hospital discharges

The government has pledged to launch an investigation following a report showing the high number of patients being discharged from hospital in the middle of the night.

A survey of 100 NHS trusts – conducted by the Times via freedom of information requests – has shown that 239,233 patients were discharged from wards between the hours of 23:00 and 06:00 last year.

If this figure is assumed to be consistent across all 170 NHS trusts, it would add up to more than 400,000 cases a year, accounting for around 3.5 percent of all discharges.

Hospital managers suggested to the newspaper that this practice is occurring in order to free up hospital beds but is frequently not in patients' best interests, leading NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh to promise a full inquiry.

He said: "I am concerned to hear that some patients may be being discharged unnecessarily late … It is simply not fair to be sending people home late at night. We will look at this."

This comes after a report from the Guardian earlier this month revealed that errors by NHS staff which lead to newborn infants sustaining brain damage are creating significant litigation costs for the health service.