Welsh Backlog

There are 1,594 people in Welsh hospitals who are fit to leave but remain there because of care or assessment delays, figures show.

That is the equivalent of the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and Glan Clwyd Hospital, Denbighshire, being full of patients who do not need to be there.

The approximate cost is £478,200 a day or £14.3m a month, according to BBC analysis.

Figures on the numbers facing delayed discharges are published monthly and the average delay for patients to leave hospital was five weeks across Wales, the BBC investigation found.