Hospital at Home annual report summary: July 2025
This is a summary of the full report.
Summary
This report summarises the impact of the national older people/acute adult hospital at home programme for the period April 2024 – March 2025, delivered by Healthcare Improvement Scotland. The focus of the programme in 2024 – 2025 was to develop the maturity of services to a point of resilient, sustainable delivery. The programme prioritised sustaining the capacity built up in previous years, as opposed to rapid growth.
Key information
Definition of older people / acute adult hospital at home
Older people/acute adult hospital at home is a service that provides acute hospital-level care by healthcare professionals, in a home context, for a condition that would otherwise require acute hospital inpatient care.
Impact of hospital at home
- The median number of patients managed per month in 2024 – 2025 was over 1600, an increase from 1400 patients per month in 2023 – 2024. This indicates that services are sustaining the capacity built in previous years.
- In 2024 – 2025, hospital at home prevented 15,470 people spending time in hospital, reducing pressure on unscheduled care and delayed discharges.
- An estimated 672 additional hospital beds and 477 care home admissions would have been required over the year if hospital at home services did not exist.
- An estimated £16.7 million in healthcare costs were avoided in 2024 – 2025 because hospital at home admissions cost less than traditional hospital admission.
- An estimated £39.4 million in healthcare costs were avoided due to reduced healthcare usage in the six months following a hospital at home discharge.
2024 – 2025 workstreams
- Developing sustainable services: In 2024 – 2025, Healthcare Improvement Scotland aimed to guide services to build resilience and maintain the capacity they had built in previous years, as opposed to increasing their capacity at a rapid rate.
- Demonstrating impact through national data collection: Healthcare Improvement Scotland committed to helping services collect meaningful data in 2024 – 2025 to inform evaluation, with a view to presenting a business case to the relevant NHS boards/HSCPs.
- Improving efficiency through technology: As services were increasing in maturity, the national hospital at home team sought options for improving efficiency, such as point of care testing. Work was conducted to understand how this technology could add value to services and improve the experiences of patients across Scotland.
- Understanding impact on vulnerable groups: Healthcare Improvement Scotland aimed to better understand how hospital at home can support vulnerable groups such as those living in care homes and those living with dementia. A scoping evidence review and a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with hospital at home staff over the period 2024 – 2025.