Ambulance Pressures

Lord Walney Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is right that I did not address that point earlier, and I apologise for that. We are putting more funding into specialist mental health services to address some of the points that both the noble Baroness and my noble friend have made. On the number of psychiatric beds available, I will have to write to my noble friend.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

I want to ask the Minister about an issue that was raised in the Health Secretary’s response at Questions yesterday. He mentioned a sprint review of delayed discharges, which have been referred to a number of times today. He suggested that it started on 1 July. Who precisely is doing the review, to whom is it reporting and will it be made public?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I think the noble Lord is referring to the national hospital discharge taskforce, which is running a national 100-day discharge challenge, which I think will be the sprint review. It is working across the health and social care system to address all the different pinch points. One of the associated aspects is that integrated care systems can now become discharge front-runners to share good practice and ambitious ideas, so that those who are doing best in this area can share best practice quickly with those who might need more support.