Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many step down beds were purchased using the £750 million of funding allocated by his Department for freeing up beds in hospitals during winter 2022-23.

The £500 million discharge fund was made available to support reduction in delayed discharges in 2022/23 in two trances with the first in December 2022 and the second at the end of January. Local areas spending plans are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adult-social-care-discharge-fund-spending-plans

We are reviewing data shared from local areas on their spend from the discharge fund and this will be included in the evaluation of the impact £500 million discharge fund.

A further £200 million was made available in January 2023 to integrated care boards (ICBs) to buy extra bed-based step-down care. Between 24 January and 31 March, sitrep data indicates ICBs used this funding to purchase over 7,000 step-down beds and over 19,000 packages of care.

The £50 million in capital funding made available in January 2023 was provided to expand hospital discharge lounges and ambulance hubs and not to purchase additional step-down beds.