Context
The question arises due to delays in discharging patients, which affects the availability of hospital beds. The local healthcare trust in Buckinghamshire has nearly one in six beds occupied by fit-for-discharge patients.
Question
What recent progress her Department has made on supporting the timely discharge of patients from hospital into social care. Nearly one in six beds in my local healthcare trust in Buckinghamshire continues to be occupied by patients fit for discharge. A recent King's Fund report found that the Government's current practice of providing one-off funding to reduce delay, while welcome, comes with insufficient advance notice to allow for effective planning.
Answer from Helen Whately
Discharging people on time is better for them and frees up hospital beds. We are changing how our health system works: joining up health and social care, care transfer hubs; helping people recover at home with more than 10,000 new virtual ward beds; investing in social care. Last month, delayed discharges were down 9% compared to the end of December 2022 despite almost 1,000 extra urgent admissions to hospitals every day in December. One reason we distributed discharge funding back in April last year was to give more advance notice so organisations could put in place what is needed to speed up discharges.
Not addressed: Specific steps for effective use of funding were not detailed beyond the general distribution of funds in April 2022.
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