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‘Bed blocker’ is an offensive and ageist term, a charity has warned.
Age UK has claimed that the term amounts to “victim-blaming”, and said that it should be “consigned to the past”.
The national charity for elderly people also raised issues with the phrases “lobster pots” and “Hotel California” (“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”), which indicate situations in which people are admitted to hospital but are unable to be released.
The charity, which has published a new report into delayed discharges, prefers the term “stranded patients” because it emphasises that “the problem is with the system, not the person”.
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “‘Bed blockers’ is a disgraceful, victim-blaming term because it implies it’s the older person’s fault that they are stuck in a hospital bed when medically fit to leave whereas, in reality, delayed discharges are a classic system problem. Poor admin in hospitals, a lack of social care, and a clunky interface between the NHS and local councils are the typical culprits, as our new report explains.
“In most cases there’s nothing an older person wants more than to get out of hospital and return home, but this only works when there’s good joined-up health and care support ready for them in the community so they can get back on their feet again.” However, she said, “this is often lacking”.
The charity’s report, titled The Longest Wait to Leave, and published on Wednesday, laid out the number of bed days in hospitals – a day a patient spends in a hospital bed when they are clinically ready to leave.
The issue has cost the NHS £229m in June alone.
The report found that in 2025/26, more than half (57 per cent) of people who could be discharged on a typical day were still stuck in hospital. This means that more than 13,000 people were still in hospital every day despite being medically well enough to leave, and they are overwhelmingly older people. Since 2021, this number has grown by nearly 70 per cent.
Furthermore, in 2025/26, 6.75 million bed days were lost to discharge delays of seven days or more. In June 2026, delayed discharges cost the NHS £229m. For 2025/26 the total cost was £2.66bn. In addition, waits in A&E of at least 12 hours for a hospital bed reached 50,000 in June, a new high for that month and more typical of the height of winter.
The charity has accused successive governments of having “taken their eye off the ball” on ending so-called “corridor care”.
Burnham vows to improve care crisis
Social care is expected to be pivotal to the government under the premiership of Andy Burnham, who became the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade on Monday. As he took office, he pledged to tackle the social care crisis, which is inextricably linked to the issue of delayed discharges.
Just moments after starting in the job, Mr Burnham said that Westminster’s failure to grasp the issue was “damning of my generation of politicians” and suggested that taxes could rise in order to fund a new national care service.
He added that there needed to be a “conversation with the public” about how to pay for the care of the UK’s ageing population. The Health Foundation think tank has estimated that introducing an NHS-style system for social care would cost an extra £18.7bn a year by 2035.
Ms Abrahams added: “Older people stuck in hospitals are stranded patients. Dismissing delayed discharges as ‘bed blocking’ is a distraction from what is really a serious policy and practice problem within the NHS, but the good news is that with political will and focused attention, it is one that can be tackled and ultimately solved.
“If we can achieve this, it would be hugely helpful to our older population, who otherwise often face miserable days and weeks wasting away in hospital when it would be safer, healthier and happier for them to leave.”
NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care were contacted for comment.
