Delay episodes reviewed
60
Sample data
Criteria to reside reviewed
75.9%
Target ≥ 90%
Discharge Ready Date documented
82.8%
Target ≥ 90%
Reason for delay documented
84.9%
Target ≥ 90%
Discharge pathway assigned
70.9%
Target ≥ 90%
Action owner documented
80%
Target ≥ 90%
Escalation completed where required
76.8%
Target ≥ 90%
Safety concerns actioned
83.3%
Target 100%
Aim
To assess whether adults who no longer meet criteria to reside have timely, documented and coordinated discharge planning, with clear identification, ownership and escalation of reasons for delay.
Standards
NHS England Hospital Discharge & Community Support · NHS England Model Discharge Pathway · Discharge Ready Date · NICE NG27 · NICE QS136 (local target ≥ 90%)
Sample
Target sample 100 adult inpatient delay episodes across participating wards, departments, specialties and services. Pseudonymised only — no direct patient identifiers.
Tool workflow
Step 1
Project setup
Confirm scope, wards, departments, specialties, services, leads and local policy references.
Step 2
Team
Add supervisors, discharge coordinators, therapy, pharmacy and governance leads.
Step 3
Inclusion / exclusion
Review who is in scope and the 32 audit criteria.
Step 4
Collect data
Structured form for each eligible delay episode.
Step 5
Dashboard
Compliance, delay reasons, pathway mix, ward variation and trends.
Step 6
Findings
Interpret results, good practice and gaps.
Step 7
Improvement
Plan actions, PDSA cycles and re-audit.
Step 8
Resources
NHS England, NICE and local policy references.
Step 9
Export centre
Editable Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, CSV and ARCP outputs.
Add a delay episode
Open the structured data collection form.
Plan improvement
PDSA cycles, actions and re-audit plan.
Generate outputs
Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF summary, CSV raw data and ARCP evidence.
Clinical safety note
This tool supports local audit, quality improvement and operational governance review. It does not make discharge decisions and does not replace clinical judgement, criteria-to-reside review, local discharge policy, safeguarding processes, Mental Capacity Act requirements, medicines reconciliation, therapy assessment, social care processes, community service pathways, specialist advice or urgent escalation pathways. Any clinical deterioration, safeguarding concern, capacity concern, unsafe discharge concern or unresolved risk must be escalated according to local policy. Do not enter patient names, NHS numbers, hospital numbers, full dates of birth, addresses or other direct identifiers.