Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase the speed of hospital discharges.

On 9 January 2023, the Government committed a further £200 million to fund short-term National Health Service step-down care packages. Integrated care boards, working closely with local authorities, will use this to purchase places in care homes and other settings, such as hospices, as well as to help fund wrap-around primary and community health services to support patients’ recovery. NHS England expect that this will allow an additional 2,500 – 3,000 patients to be discharged from hospital into other care settings, freeing up much needed acute beds and clinical capacity.

The Government has also provided an extra £50 million in capital funding to expand ambulance hubs and hospital discharge lounges to help improve the flow of patients through hospitals and the speed of hospital discharges. This complements and builds on the £500 million adult social care discharge fund announced in September 2022, which can be used to fund a much wider range of measures to support discharge, including domiciliary care packages and measures to boost workforce capacity.