Better Care Fund
(asked on 9th March 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Better Care Fund on reducing hospital discharge delays caused by shortages in social care provision.
The Better Care Fund (BCF) provides around £9 billion in 2025/26 to support integrated planning between local authorities and integrated care boards, with reducing discharge delays identified as a key priority for local BCF plans.
From 2026/27, the BCF is being reformed to support services that help people regain independence, such as intermediate care, rehabilitation and reablement services, prevent avoidable admissions, and support timely discharge from hospital. Over £9 billion will be committed to the BCF in 2026/27, and local systems will be expected to improve intermediate care by increasing capacity, ensuring services can meet demand, and strengthening both homebased and bed-based provision to reduce delays linked to social care provision.
Whilst the Department has made no specific assessment of the potential impact of the BCF on reducing hospital discharge delays caused by shortages in social care, the Government recognises the importance of supporting more timely discharge.
Previous research funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) has shown that the BCF helps reducing discharge delays though it did not specify whether these were caused by social care provision. More information is available at the following link:
https://kar.kent.ac.uk/77827/1/bcf.pdf
From August 2025, NHS England has started to publish data on the cost of discharge. This is available at the following link:
The publication includes the estimated cost of discharge delays due to capacity for people who have been in hospital seven days or longer. However, it is not possible to say whether the delays were caused by capacity constraints in social care, the National Health Service or elsewhere.
This analysis does not include wider costs, such as opportunity cost of care foregone by not being able to admit other patients, or the cost to the patient themselves of being in an inappropriate setting. The estimates do not consider the alternative cost of providing health and care support to patients outside of the acute hospital setting if these patients were not delayed in hospital.