“Digital Discharge – A Service We Cannot Afford to Overlook”

Suvo Datta, CFO - WM5G   When you ask Suvo Datta about the delayed discharge crisis, he doesn't reach for spreadsheets first. He reaches for context. "We talk about 13,800 hospital beds occupied by patients who are medically ready to leave," he says, referencing the figures from early 2025. "That's 1.77 million lost bed days. But those aren't just numbers on a finance report, they’re people who want to go home, families waiting by the phone, clinicians who know their patients deserve better.” For Suvo, the mathematics is inescapable. At £400-500 per acute bed day, the system is haemorrhaging hundreds of millions of pounds annually. But what keeps him awake at night is the 14.5 per cent. "Nearly 15% of these delays are completely avoidable," he explains. "That's approximately 250,000 bed days we're essentially writing off - capacity that could be saving lives, treating patients who genuinely need acute care.   When you remember that over one million A&E patients were treat...