THOUSANDS of patients were readmitted to Oxfordshire’s hospitals as an emergency last year within 30 days of being discharged.

There were 9,615 emergency readmissions in 2017/18 up from 7,025 in 2013/14, according to data released by NHS Digital.

The figures show the number of emergency readmissions within 30 days has increased from 11.7 per cent in 2013/14 to 14.8 per cent in 2016/17.

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With hospitals regularly running at near-maximum bed capacity, the stats have raised fears that some patients are being discharged too soon.

However, clinical director for acute medicine and rehabilitation at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) Dr Sudhir Singh said: “We have been increasingly dealing with patients who require hospital treatment for a longer amount of time due to the complexity of their conditions and their age.

“However, when they recover, it is better for their health and wellbeing to return home to their normal life.”

The trust said the increase in readmissions was a pattern being seen across the NHS, and the figures for Oxfordshire were in line with national figures of between 16 and 11 per cent.

A spokesman for Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) added that a new integrated winter team introduced in October last year had led to improvements in the discharge process.

The spokesman said: “This team has brought together acute and community health services, social care with the independent and volunteer sector to manage discharges of patients from all parts of the hospital system - A&E, assessment and from inpatient wards.

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“This integrated approach has helped to improve performance through the winter in A&E and an increased number of discharges day by day which benefit patients and ease pressures in our acute hospitals.”

The CCG will carry out a full review of its winter performance, including readmissions rates after March.

Emergency readmissions nationally have increased from 12.5 per cent of all admissions in 2013/14 to 13.8 per cent in 2017/18.

There were 865,625 emergency readmissions in 2017/18, the highest figure recorded to date.