Reducing Overcrowding in Emergency Department by Facilitating Better Discharge Planning

The NHS England sets out the target that 95% of people attending Accident & Emergency Departments are seen within four hours. The delay in discharge is often, not due to a lack of beds, but an inability of the system to flex to the peaks in demand and to be proactive in organising home care for patients in advance of discharge. Using a modified Glasgow Admission Prediction Score with a five-point triage scale at UHNM, the paper attempts to predict admissions and length of stay to allow better planning of patients’ admission and discharges and accommodate peaks in demand for care and community beds, thereby, reducing the bottlenecks of patient flow through the hospital and as a result reduce overcrowding in A&E.