John Swinney to face questions after delayed discharges cost NHS £440m

John Swinney will face First Minister’s Questions after it was revealed delayed discharges cost the NHS at least £440 million.

An Audit Scotland report released on Thursday showed more than 720,000 bed days were lost in 2024-25 with the patients being well enough to be discharged, with one in every nine beds in Scottish healthcare settings occupied by someone who did not need to be there.

People can be delayed in hospital for a number of reasons, but the most common is the lack of a social care package.

While Audit Scotland estimates that £440 million was spent on the care of those unnecessarily occupying beds, the true cost is “likely to be much higher”, according to the report.

It comes after the Scottish Government’s independent advisers completed their report on justice secretary Angela Constance.

They found she twice breached the code of conduct setting out how ministers should behave but she had done this “without any deliberation or intention to mislead”.

Despite that, she faced calls from both Labour and the Scottish Conservatives to quit the cabinet after being accused of misleading Holyrood by misrepresenting an independent expert on grooming gangs during a debate last year.

FMQs will be broadcast from the Scottish Parliament at midday on Thursday.