Hospitals: Discharges

(asked on 17th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will extend funding for implementation of the Discharge to Assess model beyond the end of March 2021 to provide funding for the financial year 2021-22; what assessment he has made of the effect of that funding so allocated to date on releasing bed capacity in hospitals; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 22nd March 2021

On 18 March 2021, we announced £594 million to continue the hospital discharge programme from April to September 2021. This will provide staff with the resources needed to enable patients to leave hospital as quickly and as safely as possible, with the right community or at-home support. This will free up thousands of extra beds and staff time to help the National Health Service recover services.

Since March 2020 we have made over £1.88 billion available via the NHS to support enhanced discharge processes. In that time, the NHS’s discharge programme has freed up over 6,000 beds and 11,000 NHS staff.

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