Overview
- New analysis finds more than 260,000 children spent at least three weeks in hospital during childhood, including 1,300 who stayed over a year and more than 14,000 who spent over a tenth of their childhoods as inpatients.
- The NHS lacks consistent data on children medically fit for discharge, with one hospital recording that 5% of ward patients in June 2025 could have left if support had been in place.
- Delays are driven by shortages of children’s social care placements, funding disputes over care packages, insufficient home nursing, and slow housing adaptations and equipment provision.
- Extended stays fall disproportionately on children from ethnic minority and more deprived backgrounds, reduce access to school and normal activities, strain families, and limit beds for other elective and emergency care.
- The report calls for a joined-up system across health, social care and education, a national expansion of home nursing, guaranteed paediatric palliative care, and stronger paid leave for parents, drawing support from charities and specialist hospital leaders as the government highlights existing hospice and social care funding.