A new digital platform is being rolled out across five NHS trusts in a bid to free up hundreds of hospital beds by getting patients home faster — and is projected to save millions of pounds in the process.
The service, called ilarna, places clinical discharge coordinators directly on hospital sites to pair medically-fit patients with a self-employed carer, known as an ilarna Personal Assistant, often within 24 to 48 hours of the patient giving consent. The London-based company says the model reduces the time patients spend on wards and helps tackle the persistent problem of delayed discharges, which has worsened in recent years.
Data analysed by The Health Foundation found that the proportion of bed days used by patients whose discharge was delayed rose from 10.1 per cent in 2024 to 11 per cent in 2025 – an increase of 19,000 bed days. On any given day, around 13,000 patients remain in hospital despite being fit to leave, according to figures cited in background research. In September 2025, delayed discharges cost the NHS in England an estimated £220 million for that single month, with the Health Service Journal calculating the annual bill at about £2 billion.
How the platform connects patients to homecare
ilarna’s approach is designed to address the main bottleneck: a lack of out-of-hospital capacity, which accounts for roughly a third of all discharge delays. Rather than relying on traditional care-home placements or overstretched local authority services, the platform creates a direct link between hospital discharge teams and a pool of self-employed personal assistants.
The discharge coordinators work alongside ward staff to identify suitable home support. Once a match is made, the personal assistant takes over care at the patient’s home, logging each visit through the platform and generating insight reports for families. The company says each assistant can spend at least an hour with the patient per visit, improving the quality of care. Families are also able to choose their own assistant.
The model has already been tested. Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust was the first to partner with ilarna, and over the past 15 months more than 1,300 hospital bed days have been released through the arrangement. The trust’s experience is now being replicated in four others: Cambridgeshire, North West Anglia, Northampton and Shropshire.
Carolyn Barnes, 54, whose 91-year-old father John has dementia and poor mobility, used ilarna as an alternative to a care-home placement. She described their personal assistant, Clarie, as “nothing short of a miracle” and said the service had supported the family through John’s turbulent health.
Cost savings and the social care workforce
According to ilarna, each NHS trust using the platform saves an average of £50,000 per month, equating to around £3 million a year across the five trusts. That figure is small relative to the estimated £2 billion annual cost of delayed discharges, but the company argues the model also delivers wider benefits for the struggling social care sector.
Personal assistants working through ilarna are self-employed and set their own hourly rates. The company communicates a minimum of £15 per hour to clients, but rates can be negotiated higher. Indeed.com data cited in research indicates average hourly pay for ilarna PAs is around £21.44 – 56 per cent above the national average for care work. The company itself reports an average of £18 per hour, with some caregivers earning up to £23.50. ilarna says improved flexibility and pay will encourage more people to join the care workforce, which has historically suffered from low pay, high vacancy rates (8 per cent compared to a UK average of 3 per cent) and staff turnover of 31 per cent, double the national average.
Alex Moran, chief executive of ilarna, said: “Every day we see people who are medically fit to leave hospital but unable to do so because the right support isn’t available when they need it. By helping people quickly connect with trusted support at home, we enable patients to recover where they want to be, while also reducing delays and supporting the NHS to focus its resources where they are needed most.”
