Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the report The state of health care and adult social care in England 2021/22 by the Care Quality Commission, published on 21 October, which found that, due to a lack of capacity in social care, just two in five people leave hospital when they are fit for discharge, what steps they are taking to increase capacity in social care so more patients can be discharged.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are investing £500 million to accelerate the safe discharge of medically fit patients from hospitals into social care. This funding can be used flexibly by local health and care systems, targeting areas facing the greatest challenges and supporting recruitment and retention in the sector. We are also investing £15 million to increase international recruitment of care workers and promoting adult social care careers through a recently launched national recruitment campaign.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much funding was allocated at the start of this financial year for NHS diagnostic centres; and how much of this funding has since been diverted to other NHS services.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The Spending Review in 2021 provided £2.3 billion in capital funding for diagnostic services over the next three years. The majority of this funding will be allocated increase the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) to 160 by March 2025 and to expand planned elective diagnostic services. In 2022/23, £900 million has been allocated to the CDC programme and to increase capacity for imaging, endoscopy, lung and mammography screening and improving digital diagnostics. The capital allocation has not been diverted to other services. Revenue funding may be lower than originally envisaged in order to meet the cost of the 2022/23 National Health Service pay settlement.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the forecast cost pressures on the NHS due to COVID-19 (1) in July, and (2) for the rest of the 2022–23 financial year.
Answered by Lord Kamall
No assessment has been made in the format requested. However, the Spending Review 2021 provided £6.096 billion for the National Health Service to fund the recovery from COVID-19 in 2022/23. The funding was provided to address the impact of the pandemic on NHS services, funding for costs directly incurred by COVID-19 costs and new pressures relating to anticipated service demand.