A trust, comprising two hospitals, has reduced the mean length of stay for acute medical admissions from 11.1 to 10.5 days and the median from six to five days, despite an increase in the number of these admissions.

Providing medical teams with unanonymised information on their length of stay profiles has helped achieve this. The information has been well accepted by consultants.

In considering length of stay it is useful to look at the mode or peak, as well as the mean. This is because the mean is heavily influenced by the small number of patients who stay in hospital for

a very long time.