Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of reintroducing permanent and specialised convalescent homes, or similar institutions, in the context of levels of availability of hospital beds.

No assessment has been made. Convalescent homes are an early example of a facility providing intermediate care. NHS England’s Delivery Plan for Recovering Urgent and Emergency Care Services sets out scaling up intermediate care as one of three priorities to improve discharge and therefore free up hospital beds, alongside improving joint discharge processes and scaling up social care services.

NHS England has begun a programme of work to develop and pilot a new approach to intermediate care, working with local authorities and voluntary and community partners.