THE GOVERNMENT must address rising rates of delayed discharges of older patients if they are to end corridor care, campaigners warned today. Age UK urged ministers in PM Andy Burnham’s new Cabinet to deal with delayed discharges, which they say rose nearly 70 per cent in five years and loses the NHS 6.75 million beds each year. Delayed discharges cost the NHS £229 million in June alone, according to a new Age UK report looking into older people’s experiences with the health service. Age UK charity director Caroline Abrahams said: “Policy-makers have stopped talking about delayed discharges, but they are high and rising – truly a crisis hiding in plain sight. “We will never end the horror of corridor care at the front door of hospitals, for as long as we fail to get a grip on the problem of delayed discharges at the back door.”