Hospitals: Delayed Discharges

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises the important point about the Casey review, which is fundamental. As he knows, it is an independent process, so I cannot give him the exact details that he is looking for, but I can assure him that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has been meeting with all the relevant people. We assume she is on track to bring forward the medium-term suggestions for improvement that she has promised us this year.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for raising this issue a number of times over many years to Governments of all colours. The latest acute discharge situation report suggests several reasons for delayed discharges, some of which the noble Baroness mentioned: awaiting medicines to take home, awaiting a discharge letter or other discharge documentation, or awaiting transport. Setting aside some of the more complex cases—people who are homeless or who require specialist treatment—organising transport and medicines in alignment with someone’s discharge date should, in theory, be quite simple once the systems are digitised and share data between them, but for now we hear stories of hours spent on the phone to care homes to find out which ones have space for discharged patients. Given these challenges, how is Minister’s department supporting ICBs to align their systems to reduce these delays caused by both small procedural blockages and digital disconnects, which slow down the whole system and sometimes lead to it being seized up?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I reassure the noble Lord that the Department of Health recognises the issues that he raises. That is why £2 billion is being put into NHS digital transformation to modernise systems, expand the use of electronic patient records and improve productivity across the service. It simply is not good enough that the reasons he outlines are causing delays. We are determined to improve these areas to speed up the process and ensure that people do not fall through the gaps, as we have seen too often.