Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the capacity of the social care sector to (a) support hospital discharges and (b) provide transitional care.

As part of planning how they will use the Better Care Fund, all local authorities and National Health Service integrated care boards have been asked to assess capacity and demand for intermediate care services and other short-term care in 2023/24. Local plans are due to be submitted to the national Better Care Fund programme at the end of June.

The Department provided £700 million in winter 2022/23 to support hospital discharges and is providing a further £600 million in 2023/24. An evaluation of the impact of the funding delivered in 2022/23 is underway.

NHS England has begun to develop and pilot a new approach to intermediate care, including rehabilitation and reablement support. Initial learning emerging from the pilot sites will be available by April 2023 and will inform the development of a new planning framework and national standard for rapid discharge into intermediate care by autumn 2023.